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I  CALIFORNIA 

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PAY-DAY. 

THE  LIGHTED  LAMP. 

JOHN  PERCYFIELD. 

THE  CHILDREN  OF  GOOD  FORTUNE. 

EDUCATION  AND  THE  LARGER  LIFE. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


EDUCATION  AND  THE 
LARGER  LIFE 

BY 
C.  HANFORD  HENDERSON 


"  Can  rules  or  tutors  educate 
The  semigod  whom  we  await  ? 
He  must  be  musical, 
Tremulous,  impressional, 
Alive  to  gentle  influence 
Of  landscape  and  of  sky, 
And  tender  to  the  spirit-touch 
Of  man's  or  maiden's  eye : 
But  to  his  native  centre  fast 
Shall  into  Future  fuse  the  Past, 
And  the  world's  flowing  fates  in  his  own 
mould  recast." 

Ehebsob. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1902,  BY  C.  HANFORD  HENDERSON 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Published  A^ril,  rgoa 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

THE  WISEST  OF  ALL  MY  TEACHERS,  AND 
THE  BEST  OF  FRIENDS 


CONTENTS 

CHAFTKB  PAn 

I.  Thb  Point  of  Vraw 1 

n.  The  Social  Purpose 30 

in.  The  Soubce  of  Power 69 

rV".  Organic  Education 97 

V.  Cause  and  Effect 132 

VI.  Childhood 167 

Vn.  Youth 205 

VIII.  Holidays 246 

IX.  At  the  University 281 

X.  The  Experimental  Life 318 

XL  The  Agents  of  the  Sociaij  Purpose  .       .       .  350 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  LARGER  LIFE 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  POINT  OP  VIEW 


It  is  the  purpose  of  the  present  volume  to  make 
a  large  inquiry,  —  the  inquiry  as  to  how  education 
can  be  so  applied  in  America  as  to  best  further 
the  progress  of  civilization.  The  term  civilization 
may  be  used  to  mean  either  the  sum  total  of  what 
man  is  doing  in  the  way  of  material  and  intellec- 
tual achievement,  or  else  the  force  underlying  this 
achievement,  the  inner  soul  of  it.  Education  has 
a  similar  double  meaning.  It  is  the  outward, 
visible  result  of  an  inner  experience,  or  it  is  the 
movement  of  the  inner  experience  itself.  No  com- 
plete view  of  life  may  lose  sight  of  either  mean- 
ing. They  stand,  indeed,  in  the  relation  of  effect 
and  cause.  It  is  important,  however,  upon  which 
meaning  we  place  the  emphasis.  The  outer  aspect 
of  civilization  is  history,  the  inner  aspect  is  phi- 
losophy. The  outer  aspect  of  education  is  know- 
ledge, the  inner  aspect  is  development.  In  a  prac- 
tical inquiry  like  the  present,  it  is  more  helpful  to 
deal   with  causes   than   with   effects.      "We   shall 


2  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

mean  by  civilization  a  force,  a  progressive  idea 
expressing  itself  as  social  environment.  We  shall 
mean  by  education  an  inner  experience,  a  practical 
process  for  the  nutrition  and  growth  of  the  civiliza- 
tion idea. 

This  method  of  treatment  is  justified  by  events. 
The  same  universe  apparently  has  always  sur- 
rounded us,  the  same  earth  and  air  and  fire  and 
water.  The  stubborn  facts  of  the  world  seem  to 
remain  pretty  much  the  same.  Cold  and  hunger 
and  nakedness  make  their  old-time  demands  upon 
human  activity.  But  from  these  seemingly  com- 
mon elements  we  build  in  different  times  and  places 
such  totally  unlike  worlds !  There  must  be  some 
unique  ingredient  which  we  severally  add  to  the 
stubborn  facts  to  work  the  wonder  of  the  individual 
life.  This  ingredient  is  the  idea.  It  makes  the 
difference  between  savagery  and  civilization.  What 
men  or  nations  make  out  of  their  material  environ- 
ment depends  solely  upon  the  ideas  which  they 
bring  to  the  adventure.  Small  ideas  make  a  small, 
primitive,  savage  world.  Great  ideas  make  Greece 
or  America. 

When  we  come  more  critically  to  look  at  our 
material  facts,  earth  and  air  and  fire  and  water,  to 
ask  the  origin  of  our  transforming  ideas,  to  seek 
the  relation  between  fact  and  idea,  we  face  at  once 
one  of  the  oldest  of  world-riddles.  The  ideas  them- 
selves come  apparently  from  an  experience  of  these 
very  facts.  But  if  the  facts  were  truly  stubborn, 
they  could  yield  nothing  beyond  fixed  ideas.     To 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  3 

make  any  advance  in  civilization  possible,  there 
must  be  some  progressive  interplay  between  fact_ 
and  idea.  Either  Nature  is  less  unalterable  than 
we  unrefleetively  thought  her,  or  else  the  impres- 
sion she  makes  upon  us  is  composite,  a  resultant 
of  the  present  aspect,  and  the  impressions  induced 
by  all  previous  aspects.  In  either  case  we  are 
brought  to  look  upon  Nature,  not  as  a  fixed  fact, 
but  as  a  progressive  environment.  The  important 
element  is  the  idea,  and  the  idea  has  the  habit  of 
growth  ;  fostered,  or  perhaps  measured,  by  the  en- 
larging of  experience. 

Experience,  in  the  larger  sense  of  the  word,  is 
the  only  road  to  truth.  Leonardo  called  experi- 
ence the  mother  of  all  science.  Experience  is 
sometimes  obscure,  but  it  is  never  more  than  seem- 
ingly contradictory.  When  we  get  to  the  bottom 
of  any  given  experience,  we  find  that  it  squares  with 
the  essential  part  of  any  other  related  experience. 
They  both  teach  the  same  general  truth,  however 
diilerent  the  special  dress.  It  is  this  quality  of 
experience,  its  inherent  consistency,  that  has  made 
our  present  civilization  possible.  As  Browning 
put  it,  — 

"  AU  'b  love,  yet  aU  's  law." 

In  the  conduct  of  the  individual  and  social  life, 
it  is  a  matter  of  the  deepest  concern  to  enlarge 
experience ;  to  recognize  the  common  element  in 
human  events ;  to  gather  these  elements  into  a  dis- 
tinct philosophy,  and  finally  to  see  to  it  that  the 


4  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

philosophy  flowers  into  performance.  And  this 
process  is  the  process  of  all  scientific  progress. 
We  have  the  students  and  observers  and  investi- 
gators, the  world  over,  gathering  together  the  un- 
disputed news  of  the  universe.  We  have  the  gen- 
eralizers,  the  Darwins  and  Spencers  and  Maxwells 
and  Kelvins,  disentangling  the  abstract  truth  from 
the  special  fact.  And  then  finally  we  have  the 
prophets,  the  far-seeing  people,  who  turn  the  gen- 
eral truth  back  again  into  a  novel  fact.  When 
these  prophets  deal  with  material  laws,  they  are 
inventors  ;  when  they  deal  with  spiritual  laws,  they 
are  seers.  It  is  the  time-honored  process  of  in- 
duction, followed  by  deduction,  and  all  branches  of 
human  inquiry  must  pass  through  both  stages  be- 
fore they  can  rank  as  sciences.  Auguste  Comte 
affirmed  the  test  of  science  to  be  the  power  of 
prediction.  This  presupposes  an  essential  order 
and  reasonableness  in  the  universe.  Were  human 
experience  not  consistent,  we  should  be  in  a  sorry 
plight.  In  a  world  of  caprice,  in  a  world  devoid  of 
this  saving  uniformity,  we  should  not  even  have 
sanity,  much  less  civilization.  The  experience  of 
to-day  would  conflict  with  and  contradict  the  ex- 
perience of  yesterday.  The  times  would  be  most 
surely  out  of  joint  and  the  world-distemper  prove 
complete. 

But  happily  we  do  not  experience  such  confu- 
sion. The  particular  service  of  the  great  physical 
laws  of  the  conservation  of  matter  and  the  conser- 
vation of  energy  has  been  to  exclude  caprice  from 
our  view  of  Nature  and  to  introduce  order. 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  5 

Education  rests  upon  the  same  uniformity  of  ex- 
perience. It  is  well  at  the  very  outset  to  disabuse 
one's  mind  of  any  lurking  belief  that  education  ia 
at  all  the  haphazard  sort  of  process  which  it  is 
commonly  conceived  to  be.  One  is  not  free  to 
decide,  offliand,  between  the  different  methods  in 
school-keeping  as  advocated  by  rival  masters.  The 
matter  may  not  be  disposed  of  in  this  casual  fash- 
ion. In  a  large  sense  there  is  no  room  for  any  play 
of  mere  opinion.  Education  is  a  definite  process, 
quite  as  definite  as  the  other  sciences  of  experience. 
But  it  is  not  a  primary  science :  it  is  an  applica- 
tion. The  direction  of  education,  that  is  to  say, 
the  motifs  is  predetermined  by  the  inner  aspect  of 
civilization,  by  philosophy,  and  this  for  practical 
ends  is  expressed  in  the  concrete  terms  of  a  social 
purpose.  When  the  philosophic  idea  has  been 
clearly  formulated,  education  has  also  been  clearly 
formulated.  Education  is  wrapped  up  in  the 
philosophic  idea  quite  as  completely  as  the  propo- 
sitions of  geometry  are  wrapped  up  in  the  initial 
axioms.  The  method  of  education,  that  is  to  say, 
the  art,  is  simply  a  rigid  application  of  the  princi- 
ple of  cause  and  effect. 

It  is  my  purpose,  accordingly,  to  present  educa- 
tion as  a  determinate,  positive  process,  whose  carry- 
ing out  possesses  the  dignity  of  a  moral  duty.  Let  • 
us  have  done,  once  for  all,  with  the  slippery  notion 
that  we  may  do  this  or  that  with  our  boys  and 
girls,  and  that  it  is  all  right,  provided  we  acted  for 
their  supposed  good  ;  and  let  us  lay  hold  of  the  far 
sturdier  and  truer  notion  that  it  is  our  supreme 


6  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

business  to  find  out  what  is  for  their  good,  and  that 
it  is  our  supreme  business  not  to  be  defeated  in 
realizing  that  good. 

Looked  at  in  this  way,  the  problem  requires 
that  we  shall  first  gather  our  knowledge  of  life  into 
a  distinct  philosophic  idea,  an  idea  which  sums  up 
the  most  general  and  abstract  of  human  truth ; 
that  we  shall  then  express  this  idea  in  the  concrete, 
specific  terms  of  a  social  purpose,  and  finally  that 
education  proper  shall  be  regarded  as  a  practical 
process  for  the  carrying  out  of  the  social  purpose. 
As  a  process,  education  is  to  be  judged  by  its  effi- 
ciency and  may  be  criticised  on  no  other  ground. 
Neither  may  its  failures  be  lightly  palliated.  The 
educational  process  does  or  does  not  produce  men 
and  women  of  the  desired  social  type,  and  this  is 
a  matter  of  very  unimpassioned  fact.  To  be  an 
educator  is  not,  then,  to  be  a  man  merely  conversant 
with  the  customs  and  conventionalities  of  the 
schoolroom.  It  is  to  be  a  man  with  a  defensible 
social  creed.  To  be  a  practical  educator,  a  teacher, 
is  to  add  to  this  the  power  to  carry  such  a  social 
creed  into  effect.  Unless  we  are  courageous  enough 
and  skillful  enough  to  work  back  to  this  firm 
ground,  the  philosophic  idea,  we  can  have  no  as- 
sured position  on  any  question  of  human  import, 
and  surely  nothing  to  say  about  education  that  will 
be  at  all  worth  saying. 

This  matter  of  method  in  handling  the  furniture 
of  one's  own  mind  is  of  such  grave  importance  that 
a  word,  in  passing,  may  not  be  out  of  place.    The 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  7 

earlier  years  of  life  are  spent  for  the  most  part  in 
accumulating  the  material  of  thought,  and  there 
are  souls  who,  through  some  fatal  paralysis  of  the 
will,  never  get  beyond  this  process  of  accretion. 
But  to  the  earnest  man  there  comes  a  divine  mo- 
ment when  new  impulses  are  working  in  the  heart, 
and  he  sets  out  to  make  use  of  his  wealth.  One 
who  reaches  this  stage  in  the  intellectual  life  must 
be  appalled  by  the  magnitude  of  the  task  before 
him.  He  finds  perhaps  in  any  single  department 
of  thought  a  fair  degree  of  consistency.  But  when 
he  compares  these  separate  strands  and  attempts  to 
weave  them  together  into  a  beautiful  and  acceptable 
fabric  of  truth,  he  stands  face  to  face  with  an  im- 
possible task.  The  separate  results  are  contradic- 
tory. I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  there  are 
many  who  are  living  in  this  confusion  of  thought, 
who  are  possibly  consistent  along  one  line,  but  who 
are  quite  inconsistent  when  it  comes  to  comparing 
these  different  results  and  trying  to  make  them 
square  with  one  another.  The  task  of  bringing 
one's  ideas  on  separate  matters  into  consistency 
with  one  another  is  so  tremendous  that  few  attempt 
it,  and  still  fewer  succeed  in  doing  it.  And  yet 
this  is  the  supreme  task  of  the  intellectual  life,  and 
one  that  we  must  all  set  about  very  earnestly,  if  the 
final  outcome  of  our  living  is  to  be  sane  and  whole- 
some. By  some  process,  the  habit  of  rigid  self- 
analysis,  the  energy  of  untiring  criticism,  by  some 
process  adapted  to  one's  temperament  and  carried 
to  a  conclusion,  one  must  perform  this  initial  vital 


8  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

act  of  the  intellectual  life,  the  finding  of  one's  self, 
before  one  can  find  another  or  render  the  largest 
social  service.  Such  an  attempt  to  make  one's 
ideas  square  with  one  another,  one's  esthetics  and 
religion  and  pedagogy,  one's  science  and  politics 
and  economics,  only  shows  the  entire  hopelessness 
of  the  task  so  long  as  these  ideas  are  reached  on 
independent  and  inadequate  grounds.  It  empha- 
sizes anew  the  surpassing  value  of  the  scientific 
method,  the  working  out  of  a  firm  philosophic 
basis,  and  the  subsequent  translation  of  this  into 
the  special  terms  of  daily  thought  and  action.  ' 

One  may  not  attempt  within  the  limits  of  a 
chapter,  or  even  within  a  single  volume,  to  work 
out  anything  so  stupendous  as  the  philosophic  idea, 
but  one  may  with  all  modesty  indicate  a  path  of 
approach,  and  report  such  content  as  one  has,  one's 
self,  been  led  to  appropriate. 

Philosophy  is  a  search  for  reality,  or,  as  more 
cautious  people  prefer  to  say,  it  is  the  search  for  a 
theory  of  reality.  As  a  practical  matter,  it  is  an 
attempt  to  rationalize  the  world,  a  profound  at- 
tempt to  harmonize  and  explain  human  experience. 
Philosophy  has  as  a  study  this  peculiar  advantage, 
that  it  requires  no  equipment  beyond  an  average 
intelligence,  and  no  material  beyond  the  data  of 
daily  experience.  It  is,  then,  open  to  every  one  to 
philosophize.  It  is  worth  remarking  that  the  un- 
dertaking is  not  at  all  novel.  All  schemes  of  life, 
however  simple  and  unsophisticated  they  may  ap- 
pear to  be  on  the  surface,  are  founded  upon  some 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  9 

theory  of  reality.  Whether  we  are  conscious  of  it 
or  not,  we  all  philosophize  after  a  fashion,  and 
perhaps  those  most  unwarrantably  who  would  most 
strenuously  deny  that  they  philosophize  at  all. 
The  man  who  tells  you  that  bricks  are  bricks; 
and  trees,  trees ;  and  houses,  houses ;  and  that  this 
so-called  outer  world  of  matter  and  motion  exists 
quite  apart  from  man,  takes  what  he  supposes 
to  be  the  common-sense  view  of  the  matter,  and 
rather  pities  the  rest  of  the  world  as  a  set  of  lost 
dreamers.  But,  in  point  of  fact,  he  has  become 
himself  the  most  thorough-going  of  theorizers,  for 
he  has  at  one  bound  passed  quite  beyond  the  limits 
of  human  experience  into  a  region  of  pure  specula- 
tion. Take  man  out  of  the  world-drama,  and  there 
is  no  reporter  left  to  acquaint  us  with  what  is  hap- 
pening. We  do  not  know  a  world  divorced  from 
human  sensation,  from  sight  and  hearing  and  touch 
and  taste  and  smell.  Such  a  world  is  a  pure  ab- 
straction. It  is  true  that  my  senses  report  what 
seems  to  be  a  three-dimensional  outer  world  as 
distinct  from  me  as  are  the  emotions  of  an  un- 
known hero.  Events  happen  in  that  outer  world 
which  I  seem  powerless  to  control.  Sometimes  I 
am  the  victim  of  them  ;  sometimes  the  beneficiary. 
But  after  all  is  done  and  said,  I  find  that  whether 
the  events  were  enacted  outside  of  me  or  not,  the 
only  report  of  them  which  I  can  possibly  have  is 
internal,  has  come  to  me  filtered  through  my  own 
brain,  and  colored  by  my  own  past. 

But  what  are  these  seeming  reports  of  the  senses  ? 


10  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

If  they  represent  the  total  material  of  the  world, 
drama,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance   to  know 
their  essence.     In  reality  they  are  only  changing 
states  of   consciousness  on  my  own  part.     And  no- 
tice also  that  if  the  drama  be  the  reaction  of  an 
independently-existing,  outer  world  upon  my  own 
organism,  it  is  conditioned  through  and  through 
by  the  state  of  the  sense  organs,  and  is  therefore 
strictly  individual.     But  the  difficulty  is  that  I  can 
never  know  whether  this  is  the  case,  whether  this 
outer  world  has  any  independent  existence,  for  I 
can  lay  hands  on  no  testimony  whatever  beyond 
just  this  bare  testimony  of  my  own  consciousness. 
So  the  question  must  remain  forever  unsolved.     If 
I  assume  the  existence  of  an  independent  outer 
world,  as  Kant  and  Spencer  do,  1  pass  into  a  realm 
of  pure  speculation,  and  one  quite  barren  of  prac- 
tical results,  for  the  outer  world,  the  cause  of  these 
sensations,  must   itself   remain   unknowable.      It 
does  no  harm  to  label  this  hypothetical  outer  world, 
this  abstraction  of  the  philosophers.     Kant  calls  it 
the  JDing-an-sichy  the  "  thing-in-itself,"  and  Spen- 
cer robes  it  in  appropriate  mystery  under  the  name 
of   the  Unknowable.     But  this  labeling  does  no 
particular  good.     In  either  case,  existent  or  non- 
existent, such  a  world,  distinct  from  the  thinking 
self,  is  pure  speculation.     The  sensations  only  are 
experienced,  and  it  is  these  which  go  to  make  up 
one's  real  world.     The  world  of  strict  experience 
turns  out  to  be  a  unit  world,  a  panorama  which 
unfolds  itself  in  one's  own  consciousness. 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  U 

For  convenience  we  may  call  this  unit  concep- 
tion idealism.  It  is  a  view  of  the  world  which 
rests  wholly  upon  every-day  experience,  and  is 
quite  devoid  of  theory.  As  an  idealist,  I  use  the 
common  language  of  mankind.  I  speak  of  the 
inner  and  the  outer  world,  of  the  things  about  me  as 
if  they  had  existence  apart  from  myself,  but  this  is 
only  the  projection  of  my  thought  into  the  realm 
of  language.  I  create  an  outer  world  in  order  to 
express  my  inner  experience.  I  speak,  then,  with 
my  brother  of  opposite  view,  in  a  language  which  is 
equally  sincere  and  definite  to  both  of  us.  We  use 
the  same  words  to  express  the  same  facts. 

In  one  sense,  of  course,  we  are  all  idealists, 
whether  we  accept  or  decline  the  particular  label, 
for  philosophy  must  rest  upon  human  experience, 
and  this  experience,  as  a  very  little  analysis  has 
just  shown,  has  no  existence  outside  of  conscious- 
ness. It  is  a  panorama  unfolding  itself  in  the  world 
of  thought.  As  an  experienced  fact,  the  universe 
reduces  itself  to  a  succession  of  states  of  conscious- 
ness, and  this  is  the  only  reality  that  we  can  know 
and  build  upon.  It  is  perfectly  natural  to  spec- 
ulate about  this  tremendous  world-drama,  and  to 
wonder  what  it  would  all  turn  out  to  be  if  one 
could  see  it  from  some  extra-human,  divine  van- 
tage ground.  The  speculation  is  not  without  ad- 
vantage, for  it  gives  a  certain  flexibility  to  thought. 
One  sets  up  a  number  of  apparent  possibilities, 
and  then  examines  as  to  how  far  they  square  with 
the  observed  facts.   A  source  of  error  creeps  in. 


12  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

however,  just  as  soon  as  we  become  so  enamored 
with  any  particular  speculation  that  we  mistake  it 
for  an  observed  fact  of  experience.  All  we  ex- 
perience is  consciousness,  a  unit  stream  of  con- 
sciousness ;  and  consciousness  is  inexplicable. 

This  speculative  habit  has  long  since  divided 
the  world  into  two  sharply  distinct  modes  of  think- 
ing, monism  and  dualism. 

As  the  name  implies,  monism  conceives  man  to 
be  a  unit.  So  far  it  is  purely  experiential  and 
non-speculative.  But  it  becomes  speculative  in  its 
division  into  the  two  cults  of  psycho-monism  and 
materialistic-monism.  The  first  is  what  we  have 
called  idealism.  It  rests  purely  upon  experience, 
and  is  the  least  daring  and  theoretical  of  all  philo- 
sophic creeds.  The  idealist  finds  in  his  stream  of 
consciousness  a  unit  world  of  spirit,  in  which  he 
recognizes  not  only  himself  but  also  the  pageantry 
of  human  and  non-human  nature.  The  union  of 
the  self  with  other  selves  and  Nature  in  one  enfold- 
ing consciousness,  of  which  he  seems  to  share  but  a 
part,  leads  him  to  frame  the  conception  of  a  cosmic 
consciousness,  of  a  divine,  pantheistic  universe. 
Referring  to  the  world-riddle  with  which  we  started 
out,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  idealist  absorbs  the 
fact  into  the  idea,  and  does  not  enter  upon  the 
difficult  speculation  of  their  separate  life  and  inter- 
play. The  materialist  is  equally  monistic,  but  he 
passes  completely  over  to  speculation,  since  he 
absorbs  the  idea  into  the  seemingly  outer  fact. 
He  declares  this  to  be  the  reality,  and  conscious- 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  13 

ness  a  passing  property  of  matter.  The  contro- 
versy between  the  two  cults  of  monism  is  ancient 
and  profound,  and  need  not  be  entered  upon  here. 
It  is,  however,  worth  remarking  that  while  ideal- 
ism does  not  pretend  to  explain  consciousness,  ma- 
terialism cannot  explain  matter.  Idealism  has 
the  advantage  of  sticking  closer  to  the  experienced 
fact. 

Idealism  being  pure  experience,  and  materialism 
pure  speculation,  dualism,  in  spite  of  the  appar- 
ent contradiction,  occupies  the  curious  position 
of  standing  midway  between  the  two.  It  is  part 
experience  and  part  speculation,  —  experience  in 
accepting  the  idea,  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
life,  and  speculation  in  accepting  the  seeming  fact 
of  the  outer  world  as  an  altogether  separate  real- 
ity. Dualism  gives  us  two  distinct  worlds,  —  one 
of  idea  or  spirit,  and  one  of  outer  fact  or  matter. 
Man  is  thus  divided  into  separate  parts,  into  spirit 
and  body.  The  social  purpose  and  the  educational 
process  which  grow  out  of  this  dualistic  conception 
of  man  share  its  speculative  character  and  its  di- 
lemmas. The  particular  difficulty  appears  when 
we  attempt  a  theory  of  knowledge.  So  complete 
is  the  chasm  between  idea  and  fact  that  no  bridge 
can  be  found  between  them.  Neither  can  know 
the  other.  We  have  thus  on  our  hands  two  worlds 
in  place  of  the  single  one  which  we  started  out  to 
explain. 

The  only  view  of  the  nature  of  man  which  can 
form  an  unchallenged  part  of  the  philosophic  idea 


14  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

is  just  this  bare  and  simple  belief  that  man  is  a 
unit,  an  integral  consciousness,  and  beyond  this, 
one  may  not  pass. 

In  thus  limiting  the  world,  as  an  experienced 
fact,  to  human  consciousness,  I  seem  at  first  sight 
to  be  robbing  it  of  reality  instead  of  conferring 
reality,  for  the  intensity  of  consciousness  varies. 
The  world  becomes  more  real  and  less  real.  It  is 
as  if  existence  itself  ebbed  and  flowed,  as  if  I  were 
more  awake  and  then  less  awake,  living  alternately 
under  the  influence  of  an  intoxicant  and  an  opiate. 
It  is,  of  course,  perfectly  easy  to  declare  this  flux 
and  flow  a  distemper  of  the  individual  mi!nd,  and 
to  erect  the  outer  world  into  a  separate,  unchange- 
able universe.  But  what  you  experience  is  not 
such  a  stable  universe,  with  yourself  left  out,  or 
even  yourself  as  mere  spectator.  It  is  the  flux 
and  flow  that  you  experience,  the  come  and  go,  the 
projection  and  the  fading.  This  is  the  life-drama, 
this  is  the  world-passion,  a  stupendous  panorama 
in  which  a  part  is  distinct  and  clear-cut ;  in  focus, 
if  you  please  to  put  it  so ;  and  part  is  vague 
and  shadowy,  like  the  foreground  in  Corot's  pic- 
tures. One  is  obliged  to  admit  varying  degrees  of 
reality. 

Have  you  ever  noticed,  for  example,  in  an  apart- 
ment, filled  with  a  great  many  ugly  things,  and  a 
very  few  beautiful  things,  that  the  ugly  things 
gradually  lose  their  power  to  annoy,  and  the  beauti- 
ful things  have  increased  power  to  attract  ?  In  the 
end  we  cease  to  see  the  ugly  things  and  see  only 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  15 

the  beautiful  things.  Do  you  remember,  how  in 
any  great  gallery  of  pictures  the  majority  of  can- 
vases fade  away ;  how  on  your  fourth  visit  to  the 
Pitti  Palace  or  the  Ufi&zi  you  saw  only  a  dozen  or  so 
pictures,  and  how  in  the  Louvre  the  Salon  Carre 
overshadows  all  the  acreage  of  canvas  ?  Thinking 
now  of  your  circle  of  acquaintance,  do  you  notice 
that  the  real  people  are  those  you  believe  in  and 
admire,  that  your  love  goes  out  to  the  people  whom 
you  have  idealized  ?  It  is  the  same  in  history,  with 
places  and  books.  Christ  is  more  teal  than  Pilate ; 
Athens  than  Rome ;  Cinderella  than  her  wicked 
sisters. 

This  unequal  reality  in  the  world-drama  is 
simply  due  to  its  unequal  power  to  stir  the  emo- 
tions. Consciousness  is  faint  or  vivid  just  in  the 
measure  that  it  is  emotional.  The  ebb  and  flow 
of  reality  has  its  counterpart  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
feeling. 

Not  only  our  consciousness  of  other  persons, 
places,  and  things,  but  even  the  consciousness  of 
self  shares  in  these  fluctuations.  There  is  a  come- 
and-go  character  about  the  experience  that  is  very 
baffling.  The  realities  of  the  young  man  are  not 
the  realities  of  the  middle-aged  man,  and  these  in 
turn  are  different  from  those  of  old  age.  In  youth, 
the  most  persistent  realities  are  those  aroused  by 
one's  companions.  There  are  moments  when  our 
love  and  interest  so  concentrate  themselves  on  the 
person  of  a  comrade  that  for  the  time  he  becomes 
a  more  intense  object  of  consciousness,  a  greater 


16  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

reality,  than  ourselves.  In  moments  of  danger  and 
illness,  of  great  sorrow  or  great  joy,  of  any  su- 
preme emotion  indeed,  the  reality  of  self  becomes 
secondary,  and  the  greater  reality  is  another.  So 
in  youth,  the  loss  of  a  dear  friend  by  death  is  to 
us  a  partial  death  for  ourselves ;  out  of  our  own 
lives  has  gone  an  integral  part  of  our  own  reality. 
Time  assuages  our  grief  by  creating  other  realities, 
and  so  in  part  repairing  the  torn  tissue  of  our 
emotions.  Some  of  these  fellow-voyagers  alto- 
gether elude  us,  iand  when  in  later  life  their  names 
are  mentioned,  we  find  them  less  familiar  than  the 
people  in  the  last  novel  we  have  read.  But  to 
others,  to  the  mother,  to  the  beloved  one,  to  the 
chosen  comrade,  we  give  the  immortality  of  an 
ever-present  reality. 

It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  this  varying 
reality  is  a  result  of  caprice,  a  mere  whimsy  of 
consciousness.  There  must  be  some  indwelling 
principle  which  determines  the  grade  of  reality  by 
the  measure  of  its  own  presence.  How  is  it  that 
the  world  is  such  a  strictly  individual  experience  ? 
How  is  it  that  it  is  literally  true  that  there  are  as 
many  worlds  as  there  are  people  in  it  ?  We  can 
best  find  an  answer  to  these  queries  by  probing 
the  most  persistent  of  all  realities,  the  conscious- 
ness of  self,  and  trying  to  find  what  principle  it  is 
which  confers  intense  reality  by  its  presence,  and 
dissipates  reality  by  its  absence.  That  my  love 
and  interest  should  so  concentrate  themselves  upon 
the  idea  of  self,  and  give  it  this  intense  reality,  is 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  17 

not  explained,  I  think,  by  what  is  commonly  called 
self-interest ;  does  not  rest  upon  what  one  may  ac- 
quire, not  even  upon  what  one  may  accomplish. 
These  represent  a  monotony  of  process  which  can- 
not stir  the  emotions  unendingly.  The  persistent, 
emotional  care  for  the  self  rests  upon  something 
deeper  and  more  fundamental.  It  rests  upon  one's 
faith  in  one's  self,  upon  the  consciousness  of  an 
unfolding  self,  upon  the  assurance  that  the  most 
real  element  in  the  self  is  an  unquenchable  aspira- 
tion for  the  things  which  are  excellent  and  beauti- 
ful. So  even  to  myself  I  seem  more  real  and  less 
real ;  more  real  as  I  approach  the  goal  of  this  high 
endeavor,  less  real  as  I  recede  from  it.  The  ecstasy 
and  the  travail  of  the  spirit  represent  the  crest  and 
the  trough  in  the  reality  of  life.  If  I  apply  the 
same  test  to  other  persons,  and  to  things,  I  get  the 
same  result.  Their  power  to  stir  the  emotions,  to 
heighten  consciousness,  and  so  to  become  the  in- 
tense  realities  of  the  experienced  moment  depends 
upon  their  supposed  measure  of  worth.  The  per- 
sistent, emotional  care  which  the  self  feels  for 
other  selves  rests  upon  just  such  grounds  as  these. 
Our  love  for  them  rests  upon  what  they  are,  or 
what  we  believe  they  are,  upon  our  ideal  of  them, 
and  no  love  is  founded  upon  any  other  ground 
than  a  belief  in  the  essential  excellence  of  its  ob- 
ject. It  is  the  same  with  things.  Art  is  always 
representative  and  symbolic.  It  lacks  the  reality 
of  living  men  and  women,  of  actual  Nature,  bufc 
the  same  touchstone  applies  to  both.     It  is  the 


18  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

greater  excellence  which  confers  the  greater  re- 
ality. The  marbles  of  Greece,  the  frescoes  and 
canvases  of  Italy,  are  still  the  objects  of  loving 
reverence.  They  have  been  imitated  in  countless 
numbers.  In  hundreds  of  galleries  men  and  women 
make  their  mute  appeal  in  marble  or  on  canvas, 
but  hardly  one  touches  the  spirit.  It  is  so  much 
material,  so  much  technique,  so  much  time  doubt- 
fully spent,  but  it  is  a  slender  reality.  The  marble 
of  Greece  has  not  only  the  poetry  of  form ;  it  has 
the  deeper  and  more  abiding  loveliness  of  the  in- 
dwelling spirit.  So  subtle  is  it  that  the  eye  alone 
cannot  compass  it.  One  would  like  to  pass  the 
band  reverently  over  the  almost  living  limb  and 
pulsing  chest  to  fully  apprehend  it.  The  men  of 
Michelangelo  are  the  incarnation  of  penetrating, 
vital  ideas.  They  are  the  channel  through  which 
he  speaks.  Beautiful  and  mercifid,  or  stern  and 
dreadful,  they  sweep  over  the  whole  scale  of  human 
emotion.  This  untiring  quest  of  perfection  is  the 
most  abiding  impulse  of  the  human  spirit.  Reality 
resides  in  this  impulse  towards  perfection  in  the 
world  of  life ;  in  the  promise  of  perfection  in  the 
world  of  things. 

And  I  propose  now  to  go  a  step  further,  carry- 
ing over  into  the  remote  and  less  known  the  same 
principles  which  hold  good  in  our  experience  of  the 
near  and  better  known. 

In  moments  of  contemplation,  we  purify  our 
ideals  of  all  imperfectness.  By  constantly  looking 
upon  the  goodness  of  the  mother,  we  merge  her 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  19 

at  last  in  our  thought  into  the  perfect  mother,  the 
Madonna.  By  dwelling  persistently  upon  the  ex- 
cellence and  the  beauty  of  the  friend,  we  trans- 
figure him  into  Apollo.  So  in  the  heart  is  accom- 
^  plished  the  apotheosis  of  those  whose  nature  cast 
about  them  in  real  life  the  aureole  of  assured  good- 
ness. The  images  which  we  thus  create  out  of  the 
material  of  our  own  emotional  experience  accom- 
plish in  our  consciousness  just  those  steps  towards 
deeper  goodness  and  wider  knowledge  and  more 
radiant  beauty  which  the  unfolding  self  pictures  as 
its  own  destiny.  So  the  self,  building,  observe,  out 
of  its  own  inner  experience,  projects  into  Olympus  a 
higher  order  of  being  than  it  has  visibly  experienced 
on  the  earth.  Saints  and  heroes,  angels  and  gods, 
become  realities  of  experience  in  so  much  as  they 
represent  perfectly  definite  and  rational  steps  in 
that  process  of  becoming  which  the  unfolding  self 
is  conscious  of  having  entered  upon. 

One  more  step  remains  in  this  projection  of  the 
greater  self  into  the  empyrean  of  the  unseen  good. 
The  quest  of  perfection  stretches  out  unendingly. 
It  is  the  occasion  of  infinite  hope.  But  one  can  in 
words  at  least  pass  to  the  last  term  in  such  a  series. 
When,  by  a  supreme  effort,  the  consciousness  pro- 
jects its  image  to  the  utmost  limit  of  possible 
experience,  and  declares  the  realization  of  all  good- 
ness, the  attainment  of  all  knowledge,  the  satisfac- 
tion of  all  aspiration,  the  enfolding  of  all  beauty  in 
a  cosmic  is,  then  the  self,  though  it  may  not  con- 
ceive him,  at  least  breathes  the  name  of  God,  the 


fO  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

consciousness  which  includes  the  whole  of  the  world" 
drama. 

When  I  ask  myself  what  degrees  of  reality  at- 
tach to  these  elements  of  consciousness,  to  the  self, 
to  the  comrades,  to  the  angels,  to  God,  I  can  only 
answer  that  with  the  flux  and  flow  of  consciousness 
the  reality  changes.  As  we  have  seen,  there  are 
moments  when  the  friend  obscures  the  self  and  be- 
comes the  more  intense  reality.  There  are  moments 
when  the  angels  overshadow  both,  and  become  more 
real  than  either.  There  are  moments  when  the 
vague  idea  of  God  transcends  all  else,  and  fills  the 
whole  of  consciousness.  But  there  is  no  necessity, 
indeed,  there  is  no  merit,  in  arranging  these  reali- 
ties in  anything  like  a  graded  scale.  Their  very 
soundness  and  integrity  depend  upon  the  unper- 
suaded  play  of  consciousness. 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  hold  this  ideal  of  an 
unfolding  and  progressive  self,  and  to  find  the  real- 
ity of  the  world  in  human  consciousness  unless  we 
believe  on  the  same  grounds  in  a  continuity  of  ex- 
istence, that  is  to  say,  in  immortality. 

Such  a  belief  has  been  the  hope  held  out  by 
religion  for  many  centuries,  and  at  times  this  hope 
has  been  sufficiently  assured  to  be  a  vital  element 
in  the  conduct  of  life.  But,  unhappily,  the  doc- 
trine of  immortality  has  been  for  the  most  part 
associated  with  those  religions  which  are  either 
avowed  or  veiled  forms  of  pessimism.  In  a  world 
quite  given  over  to  the  devil,  the  other  world  was 
offered  by  way  of  antithesis,  and  salvation  was  made 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  21 

to  consist  in  a  process  of  escaping  from  one  into 
the  other.  This  is  but  one  of  the  many  regrettable 
instances  in  which  a  vital  truth,  expressed  in  a 
poetic  and  spiritual  form,  became  a  distinct  untruth 
in  literal  and  unspiritual  hands.  When  the  nine- 
teenth centuiy  arrived  with  her  gift  of  science  to  the 
world-life,  with  her  teaching  of  ascent  and  develop- 
ment in  place  of  sin  and  deterioration,  it  became 
impossible  to  hold  with  any  degree  of  assurance  to 
the  crude  and  shocking  forms  of  pessimism  which 
had  been  robbing  the  previous  world-life  of  so 
much  of  its  usefulness  and  delight.  The  recogni- 
tion that  this  world  is  both  good  and  sweet  has 
withdrawn  men's  attention  from  the  too  passionate 
contemplation  of  another  life,  save  perhaps  in  those 
august  moments  when  the  presence  of  death  has 
once  more  forced  the  question.  The  failure  of  the 
old,  literal  antithesis  between  the  kingdom  of  this 
world  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  carried  down 
with  it  in  many  minds  its  attendant  doctrine  of 
immortality.  It  was,  however,  too  precious  a  hope 
to  be  given  over  without  a  struggle.  But,  in  the 
main,  it  has  become  an  expectation  which  the 
modern  world  has  fostered  rather  than  insisted 
upon.  Of  recent  years  even  this  qualified  expecta- 
tion has  been  growing  fainter  and  fainter.  Im- 
mortality has  been  made  impersonal ;  it  has  been 
transferred  to  the  race,  or  finally,  by  many  of  the 
best  and  most  earnest  people,  it  has  been  given  up 
altogether,  and  the  prospect  of  annihilation  has 
been  bravely  accepted.     Perhaps  only  one  who  has 


»  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

passed  through  all  these  phases  of  thought  and 
belief  can  appreciate  their  significance.  I  have 
sometimes  fancied  indeed  that  one  condition  of  a 
genuine  belief  in  immortality  is  a  perfect  willing- 
ness to  disbelieve  it. 

/  From  a  scientific  point  of  view  there  seems  no 
warrant  whatever  for  a  belief  in  immortality,  and 
probably  this  lack  of  scientific  support  is  responsi- 
ble for  the  fact  that  such  a  belief  is  now  somewhat 
old-fashioned,  and  is  regarded  as  conservative  and 
reactionary.  But  just  as  one  would  exclude  specu- 
lation unverified  by  experience  from  a  theory  of 
man,  would  one  quite  as  rigidly  exclude  it  from  a 
theory  of  his  destiny.  The  fact  that  science  is  per- 
fectly silent  in  regard  to  immortality  is  not  in  any 
way  significant  as  to  the  belief,  but  only  as  to  the 
province  of  science.  Those  of  us  who  have  been 
brought  up  in  the  camp  of  the  scientists,  and  have 
preserved  intact  our  loyalty  and  our  affection,  know 
full  well  that  science  has  no  word  to  say  on  destiny 
or  first  causes.  Her  work  is  limited  solely  to  the 
study  of  appearances,  to  the  bringing  of  these  into 
harmonious  relation,  and  to  the  intelligent  presenta- 
tion of  the  world-drama  as  it  is.  There  is  no  search 
for  the  underlying  reality,  and  no  attempt,  however 
partial,  at  any  explanation  of  the  universe. 

It  may  well  be  that  this  statement  will  bring  to 
mind  the  much-quoted  doctrine  of  evolution  and 
the  fierce  fight  which  centred  about  it  not  so  many 
years  ago.  The  friends  of  religion  rated  evolution 
as  an  explanation  of  the  world,  and  the  friends  of 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  23 

science  made  the  same  mistake.  But  the  contro- 
versy turned  out  to  be  over  a  mere  man  of  straw. 

Evohation,  as  a  teaching  of  science,  is  a  state- 
ment of  the  world-process,  of  how  the  present 
emerges  from  the  past,  and  has  no  single  word  to 
offer  by  way  of  explanation.  In  this,  it  is  precisely 
like  any  other  of  our  natural  laws,  a  chastened 
statement  of  human  observation.  So  immortality, 
being  outside  the  realm  of  present  objective  ex- 
perience, does  not  come  within  the  province  of 
science  and  may  not  be  submitted  to  its  judgments. 

The  question  of  immortality  belongs  entirely  to 
philosophy,  to  this  searching  scrutiny  of  the  inner 
experience  ;  and  as  this  comes  to  be  more  fully  real- 
ized, a  belief  in  immortality  will  naturally  become 
once  more  prevalent.  For  philosophy,  seeing  in 
human  consciousness  the  one  undoubted  reality, 
and  in  the  impulse  towards  perfection  the  keenest 
manifestation  of  consciousness,  must  ascribe  to  this 
consciousness  and  to  this  impulse  the  same  eternal 
quality  that  it  ascribes  to  the  great  universe  itself. 
That  part  of  human  experience  which  we  call  mat- 
ter and  motion  could  as  well  pass  into  nothingness 
as  the  medium,  the  consciousness,  in  which  they 
have  their  being.  Here  again,  if  we  choose  to  go 
beyond  experience,  and  once  more  speculate,  we 
may  ascribe  to  matter  and  motion,  that  is,  to  the 
great  outer  world  of  which  these  are  the  sole  con- 
tent, a  reality  independent  of  man,  and  may  declare 
this  eternal,  and  man  passing.  But  I  find  no  sober, 
empirical  ground  for  such  a  belief. 


24  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

It  may  not  be  offered  as  an  argument,  perhaps, 
but  it  is  worth  remarking  that  the  quest  of  perfec- 
tion which  seems  to  us  the  most  abiding  impulse  of 
the  human  spirit,  the  keenest  manifestation  of  con- 
sciousness, would  be  quite  meaningless,  save  as  a 
progressive,  unlimited,  timeless  process. 

These  remarks  upon  the  content  of  the  philo- 
sophic idea  are  offered  simply  as  considerations  by 
the  way,  and  not  at  all  as  a  systematic  explora- 
tion of  the  field.  That  would  require,  as  I  have 
said,  not  only  a  whole  volume,  but  many  volumes. 
Yet  out  of  these  considerations  there  do  emerge 
what  seem  to  me  the  essential  elements  of  an  ade- 
quate philosophic  and  social  creed,  and  consequently 
the  framework  of  a  practical  educational  process. 

I  would  sum  up  these  elements  as  six  in  number, 
and  for  a  practical  reason,  which  will  appear  later, 
I  would  divide  them  into  two  groups  of  three  ele- 
ments each.  The  first  group,  having  to  do  with 
the  present  moment,  may  be  called  immediate,  and 
the  second  group,  having  to  do  with  the  larger  mo- 
ment of  humanity,  may  be  called  ultimate.  This 
division  is  purely  for  convenience  of  treatment,  and 
does  not  signify  any  time  difference  between  the 
groups ;  for,  in  a  large  sense,  philosophy  does  not 
deal  with  past,  and  present,  and  future,  with 
*'  this  "  world  and  the  "  next "  world,  but  recog- 
nizes in  the  present  moment  the  one  reality  of  ex- 
perience, the  one  chalice  into  which  is  concentrated 
the  whole  wine  of  life. 

The  immediate  group  would  contain  a  belief  in 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  25 

the  unity  of  man  ;  a  belief  that  Nature,  or  the  oiAer 
world,  is  an  interpretation  and  counterpart  of  the 
inner  life ;  and  finally,  a  belief  that  the  process  of 
life  is  esthetic,  is  an  operation  for  deepening  the 
reality  of  the  world  by  increasing  its  excellence  and 
beauty. 

The  ultimate  group  would  include  the  more  tran- 
scendental content,  a  belief  in  immortality  ;  a  be- 
lief in  the  existence  of  more  evolved  beings,  whom 
we  may  call  angels  and  gods ;  and  finally  a  belief 
in  the  spiritual  existence  of  the  cosmic  conscious- 
ness, the  immanent  God. 

These  beliefs,  with  the  implications  which  attend 
them,  make  up  for  me  the  content  of  the  philo- 
sophic idea.  As  a  man  desiring  to  live  the  higher 
life  of  consistency  and  goodness,  I  must  translate 
these  elements  into  a  distinct  social  purpose,  and  I 
must  realize  this  social  purpose  through  an  efficient 
educational  process. 

These  beliefs  are  not  novel.  But  I  can  readily 
understand  that  there  will  be  many  who  will  not 
agree  to  them  as  the  true  content  of  the  philosophic 
idea.  In  particular,  this  conception  of  immortality 
and  of  angels  and  gods  may  seem  mediaeval  and 
metaphorical.  While  I  do  not  aspire  to  cast  a  drag- 
net for  the  whole  body  of  educators,  even  supposing 
that  I  could  spin  so  great  a  web,  neither  do  I  want 
to  part  company  with  the  earnest  men  and  women 
of  the  profession  save  at  some  vital  divergence  of 
belief  and  consequently  at  some  necessary  diver- 
gence of  practice.     It  is  in  this  spirit  of  comrade* 


26  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

ship  that  I  feel  bound  to  indicate  how  far  we  might 
profitably  travel  together,  and  just  where  we  must 
meet  an  ine^ntable  parting  of  the  ways. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  any  one  who  accepts 
the  immediate  group  of  elements,  or  even  the  first 
of  them,  a  thorough-going  belief  in  the  unity  of 
man,  might  be  interested  to  follow  the  system  of 
education  which  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  book  to 
unfold.  As  we  have  seen,  this  major  belief,  in 
human  unity,  is  held  in  common  by  such  opposite 
camps  as  those  of  the  materialists  and  idealists. 
Though  apparently  the  most  unlike  of  thinkers, 
they  both  attempt  to  stick  very  close  to  the  facts 
of  human  experience,  and  consequently  they  reach 
many  of  the  same  conclusions.  It  is  only  when 
the  materialist  passes  over  into  the  mists  of  specu- 
lation that  the  idealist  loses  sight  of  him.  It  is 
also  worth  remarking  that  the  third  element,  the 
belief  that  the  process  of  life  is  esthetic,  though 
reached  by  quite  a  different  and  independent  path, 
is  in  reality  only  another  statement  of  the  observed 
world-process,  as  formulated  by  the  law  of  evolu- 
tion. In  the  old  Stadt-Kirche  at  Weimar,  on  the 
tomb  of  Herder,  one  may  read  these  thrilling  words : 
"  Licht,  Liebe,  Leben."  It  is  the  cry  of  an  im- 
passioned poet,  but  it  voices  as  well  the  deepest 
message  of  both  philosophy  and  science.  The  sec- 
ond element,  the  view  of  Nature,  is  perhaps  more 
debatable  ground.  Yet,  even  here,  the  antagonism 
is  less  than  at  first  sight  appears.  To  the  ideal- 
ist, Nature  is  the   interpretation   and   projection 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  27 

of  the  inner  life,  and  varies  as  it  varies.  To  tht 
believer  in  the  unknowable.  Nature  is  the  more  po- 
tent and  the  eternal  reality,  and  through  environ- 
ment determines  the  inner  life  of  the  human 
spirit.  I  would  not  fill  up  with  obscurity  the  tre- 
mendous chasm  between  these  two  views,  but  it  is 
nevertheless  true  that  the  difference  is  one  of  em- 
phasis. The  idealist  puts  it  on  human  conscious- 
ness; the  naturalist,  on  the  external  world.  But 
they  agree  in  recognizing  the  intimate  connectioa 
and  dependence  of  the  two. 

There  is,  however,  a  veritable  parting  of  the 
ways  between  myself  and  those,  if  such  there  be, 
who  do  not  hold  at  least  a  thorough-going  belief  ia 
the  unity  of  man,  I  cannot  hope  to  interest  them, 
and  I  cannot  ask  for  their  sympathy.  The  system 
of  education  to  be  developed  in  the  following  pages 
as  a  consistent,  logical  process  of  human  culture, 
stands  or  falls  with  the  doctrine  of  the  unity  of 
man.  It  would  be  quite  meaningless  from  any 
genuinely  dualistie  conception  of  man.  It  can  only 
have  value  to  those  who  believe  in  man  as  a  unit 
organism. 

I  might  add,  parenthetically,  that  the  believers 
in  genuine  dualism  are  a  diminishing  company. 
I  do  not  mean  that  the  ritual  of  dualism  is  less  in 
evidence  than  formerly.  I  mean  only  that  the  sub- 
stance is  being  dissolved  out  of  it.  One  sees  on  all 
sides  religious  sects  whose  creeds  assert  the  most 
uncompromising  dualism,  the  deepest  pessimism, 
given  over  by  a  happy  inconsistency  to  the  prac- 


28  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

tice  and  inculcation  of  a  most  cheerful  monistic 
optimism.  My  meaning  will  be  clear  when  I  call  at- 
tention to  the  gymnasiums,  manual  training  classes, 
country  clubs,  Saturday  half-holidays,  improved 
tenements,  diet  kitchens,  public  baths,  libraries, 
concerts,  studios,  laboratories,  lectures,  which  have 
replaced  the  old  and  more  logical  asceticism,  and 
now  form  the  wise  and  approved  activities  of  the 
religious.  It  is  far  better  to  profess  a  crude  pessi- 
mistic dualism  and  practice  a  sweet  optimistic 
monism  than  the  reverse,  but  one  cannot  help  wish- 
ing that  our  current  creeds  might  at  least  keep  pace 
with  the  very  best  of  our  current  practice.  It  is 
an  old  complaint  that  practice  falls  behind  creed. 
It  may  seem  a  novel  and  highly  optimistic  prayer 
that  creed  might  keep  pace  with  practice. 

As  a  practical  operation,  however,  I  conceive 
that  education  gains  an  immense  power  from  the 
acceptance  of  our  more  transcendental  beliefs  in 
immortality  and  in  an  infinite  series  of  angels  and 
gods.  These  beliefs  are  not  open,  I  think,  to  the 
charge  of  fostering  what  Huxley  has  so  cleverly 
named  "  other-world lin ess  "  by  turning  one's  atten- 
tion from  the  present  to  the  future.  The  search 
for  excellence  and  beauty  is  the  search  for  pre- 
sent qualities ;  and  culture,  which  is  the  study  and 
pursuit  of  perfection,  is  by  nothing  so  much  dis- 
tinguished from  smaller  ends  and  purposes  as  by 
its  insistence  upon  the  incomparable  value  of  the 
present  moment.  Unless  the  present  moment  is 
rich  and  full,  an  infinity  of  such  moments  would 


THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  29 

be  intolerable.  But  a  sincere  and  vital  belief  in 
immortality  has  the  immense  merit  of  eliminating 
the  element  of  time  and  giving  one  a  sense  of  infinite 
leisure  and  of  unfailing  wealth.  Furthermore,  it 
turns  the  attention  increasingly  towards  those  things 
which  are  eternal,  towards  excellence  and  beauty 
and  love  and  happiness,  and  it  does  make  the  tran- 
sient and  expedient  things,  the  shop-keeping  and 
advertising,  the  speculating  and  overreaching,  the 
counterfeits  and  insincerities,  the  things  that  lack 
the  eternal  element,  seem  d\l  of  them  insignificant 
and  unworthy. 

In  quite  the  same  way  a  belief  in  a  more  evolved 
order  of  beings,  in  angels  and  gods,  brings  with  it 
a  very  real  help  in  our  own  endeavor.  It  is  in- 
expressibly comforting  to  feel  that  the  excellence 
and  beauty  towards  which  we  are  ourselves  toiling 
are  even  now  the  dear  possessions  of  other  sentient 
beings,  gracious  comrades  in  the  same  infinite  spiral 
of  being.  Those  who  come  of  an  old  and  honor- 
able family  must  feel  the  welcome  pressure  of  good 
traditions,  the  noblesse  oblige  of  a  true  aristocracy. 
So,  it  seems  to  me,  that  to  feel  one's  self  a  part  of 
the  cosmic  consciousness,  a  member  of  that  greater 
company  of  excellence,  of  angels  and  gods,  is  to 
bring  into  one's  own  life  the  welcome  pressure  of 
an  unfailing  expectation,  the  noblesse  oblige  of  a 
universe. 


CHAPTER  n 

THE  SOCIAL    PURPOSE 

Human  experience  generalized  is  in  reality  what 
one  means  by  the  philosophic  idea.  It  is  the  aim 
of  the  present  chapter  to  translate  this  idea  into 
the  exact  vocabulary  of  a  social  purpose.  It  can 
best  be  accomplished  by  developing  each  element  of 
the  philosophic  idea  into  its  own  special  contribu- 
tion to  the  programme  of  daily  life.  The  inquiry  is 
purely  practical. 

It  were  well  to  ask,  first  of  all,  what  we  mean  by 
a  belief  in  the  unity  of  man. 

This  belief  is  at  once  the  most  concrete  anr"  the 
most  abstract  of  truth.  It  is  the  creed  of  monism 
and  is  consequently  the  anchorage  of  such  other- 
wise dissimilar  thinkers  as  materialists  and  ideal- 
ists. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  materialism,  the  unity 
of  man  is  an  undeniable  concrete  fact.  Man  is,  in 
the  last  analysis,  only  a  bit  of  highly  organized 
matter,  the  most  complex  and  the  most  unstable  of 
all  Nature's  chemical  compounds.  His  thoughts 
and  emotions  are  the  subtle  accompaniment  of  the 
rapid  changes  taking  place  in  this  sensitive  and 
unstable  organism.     Human  life  is  a  part  of  such 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  31 

reaction  in  much  the  same  way  that  an  electric  cur- 
rent is  a  part  of  the  reaction  taking  place  in  a 
voltaic  cell.  The  electric  current  is  quite  as  es- 
sential, quite  as  unavoidable  a  part  of  the  reaction, 
as  are  the  spent  acid  and  the  spent  metal.  So 
humanity,  it  is  argued,  is  quite  as  essential  a  part 
of  the  human  reaction  as  are  the  carbon  dioxide 
and  water  vapor  and  other  spent  products  of  the 
bodily  economy.  This  was  summed  up  in  that  early 
and  much-quoted  maxim  of  materialism,  that  the 
brain  secretes  thought  as  the  liver  secretes  bile. 

The  analogy  to  the  voltaic  cell  may  be  carried  a 
step  further.  In  the  voltaic  cell  there  comes  a  time 
when  all  the  acid  is  spent,  and  all  the  metal  is  dis- 
solved, and  then  there  is  no  more  current,  and  the 
cell  becomes  a  bit  of  quiescent  earth.  In  the  life  of 
the  human  organism,  they  say,  it  is  the  same.  There 
comes  a  time  when  the  vital  forces  are  spent,  and 
the  irgans  no  longer  perform  their  office,  and  then, 
there  is  no  more  human  life,  and  the  spent  body  is 
committed  to  the  grave,  ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to 
dust.  It  is  impossible  from  this  point  of  view  to 
believe  in  immortality.  It  is  true  that  the  electric 
current  is  not  lost.  It  is  true  that  the  human  cur- 
rent is  not  lost.  Both  are  spent  in  doing  work,  and 
the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy  prohibits 
the  belief  that  this  work  can  ever  be  destroyed. 
Even  the  bodily  heat  of  the  multitudinous  children 
of  men  has  its  effect  upon  the  climate,  and  so  upon 
the  destiny  of  the  physical  earth.  But  both  the 
human  and  the  electric  currents  are  dissipated,  and 


82  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

individually  cease  to  be.  In  the  same  way  a  belief 
in  higher  orders  of  beings  could  have  no  interest 
and  significance.  It  would  be  a  mere  idle  specu- 
lation, for  with  the  passing  moment  of  humanity 
such  beings  could  stand  in  no  vital  relation. 

Such  a  materialistic  view  as  this,  the  view  that 
makes  man  a  unit,  because  it  makes  him  all  mat- 
ter, seems  the  easiest  to  slip  into,  and  particularly 
easy  for  those  who  approach  the  intellectual  life 
along  the  pathway  of  the  natural  sciences.  How- 
ever thoroughly  one  may  repudiate  such  a  view  for 
one's  self,  one  must  still  feel  a  genuine  respect  for 
any  view  which  has  attracted  so  many  honest  and 
noble  minds.  One  of  the  most  lovable  of  these, 
Clifford,  has,  if  I  remember  rightly,  this  tragic 
record  on  his  tomb :  "  I  was,  I  loved,  I  am  not." 
Haeckel,  who  might  from  his  earnestness  be  called 
the  apostle  of  human  mortality,  expressly  says, 
"  The  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  human  soul 
is  a  dogma  which  is  in  hopeless  contradiction  with 
the  most  solid  empirical  truths  of  modern  science." 

Bat  other  spirits,  equally  beautiful  and  equally 
lovable,  men  like  Agassiz  and  Clerk-Maxwell,  have 
stood  for  a  more  complete  view.  And  nothing,  in- 
deed, seems  to  me  quite  so  interesting  in  all  the 
drift  of  modern  scientific  thought  as  the  tendency 
which  I  detect,  or  think  that  I  detect,  in  our  most 
representative  men  of  science  to  accept  with  all 
readiness  the  orderly  and  magnificent  report  of 
the  world  of  phenomena  which  science  is  every  day 
making,  and  at  the  same  time  to  recognize  that  for 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  33 

its  inner  reality  and  explanation  one  must  turn  to 
the  experience  of  the  intellectual  life.  This  move- 
ment  toward  the  humanizing  and  spiritualizing  of 
the  world,  this  deepening  of  the  religious  senti- 
ment, is,  I  think,  as  characteristic  of  the  opening 
of  the  twentieth  century  as  the  wave  of  somewhat 
crude  agnosticism  which  swept  over  the  latter 
half  of  the  nineteenth  was  characteristic  of  that 
period.  I  do  not  wish  in  any  way  to  discredit  the 
cleansing  value  of  this  wave,  for  I  can  easily  believe 
that  it  was  necessary  to  prepare  the  way  for  that 
sweeter  and  more  reverent  cult  of  the  modern  world, 
the  worship  of  the  Spirit. 

Quite  of  an  opposite  turn  of  mind  to  the  ma- 
terialist stands  the  idealist.  To  him  the  unity  of 
man  is  an  undeniable,  abstract  truth.  Conscious- 
ness is  the  one  reality,  the  medium  in  which  the 
world-play  is  carried  out.  Human  experience  is 
the  universe,  and  the  events  of  life  are  essentially 
the  changing  states  of  human  consciousness.  It 
is  quite  as  impossible  for  the  idealist  as  for  the 
materialist  to  bisect  human  experience,  and  call 
one  part  matter,  and  the  other  part  mind,  and  to 
think  of  them  as  separable  and  independent  reali- 
ties. The  whole  experience  of  the  moment,  as 
idealists  like  to  put  it,  is  the  reality,  and  must  be 
accepted  in  its  entirety.  Such  an  experience,  when 
viewed  at  short  range,  shows  neither  matter  nor 
spirit,  nor  any  other  antithesis.  It  shows  the  even 
flow  of  a  unit  consciousness. 

It  is  impossible,  then,  to  have  evil  experience 


34  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

with  the  body  and  to  have  health  in  the  mind,  or 
evil  experience  with  the  mind  and  keep  the  body 
in  health.  It  is  impossible  to  be  one  thing  and  at 
the  same  moment  its  opposite,  to  be  awkward  and 
partial  and  weak  and  unbeautiful  on  one  side  of 
your  nature,  and  clever  and  total  and  strong  and 
beautiful  on  another  side.  One  may  not  have  one 
set  of  morals  for  business  or  politics,  and  another 
set  for  the  home  life.  One  may  not  say  yes  and 
no,  be  hot  and  cold,  look  forward  and  backward, 
all  at  the  same  moment.  One  may  not  have  unde- 
veloped organs  and  deficient  senses  and  faulty  cir- 
culation and  stunted  brain  centres,  and  still  be  the 
source  of  a  radiant,  complete  life.  Our  own  experi* 
ence  of  life  makes  impossible  the  view  that  man's 
bodily  and  mental  and  spiritual  powers  are  simply 
the  members  of  a  triple  alliance  which  in  times  of 
exceptional  good-will  may  work  together  for  a  com- 
mon purpose,  but  at  other  times  may  secretly  plot 
and  plan  against  one  another  and  against  the  com- 
mon good.  It  makes  necessary  the  view  that  man 
must  be  considered  as  a  whole,  that  his  well-being 
means  the  well-being  of  his  body,  the  well-being  of 
his  mind,  the  well-being  of  his  spirit. 

This,  very  briefly,  is  what  we  mean  by  the  unity 
of  man,  and  this  is  precisely  what  we  experience 
in  life ;  not  bodies,  not  minds,  not  souls,  but  men, 
whole  or  partial  as  the  case  may  be,  but  neverthe- 
less men.  It  is  what  we  experience  in  our  imme- 
diate, contemporary  life,  and  it  is  what  we  find 
recorded  in  history.     The  partition  of  man  into 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  35 

dual  or  triple  parts  is  merely  verbal.  The  reality 
is  the  unit  man. 

This  is  a  matter  to  be  strongly  emphasized,  this 
unity  of  man,  for  it  is  the  very  heart  of  the  philo- 
sophic idea.  Furthermore,  as  we  shall  see  during 
the  progress  of  the  chapter,  the  attempt  to  trans- 
late this  doctrine  into  a  practical  social  programme 
leads  to  very  far-reaching  and  radical  results.  It 
does  this,  because  when  combined  with  the  belief 
that  the  world  process  is  esthetic,  it  sets  up  a 
totally  new  standard,  and  one  that  is  altogether  in- 
exorable and  imperative. 

The  interplay  between  the  world  of  human  con- 
sciousness and  the  so-called  outer  world  is  what  is 
commonly  called  a  theory  of  Nature.  Modern 
methods  of  estimating  time  and  age  lay  increasing 
stress  upon  the  quality  of  the  years,  and  have  less 
to  say  about  the  mere  number  of  years  that  go  to 
make  up  a  human  life.  It  is  not  how  many  years 
you  have  been  about  it,  but  what  experience  you 
have  pressed  into  it.  Jesus,  in  one  third  of  a  cen- 
tury, drained  the  cup  of  earth  life ;  Methuselah, 
with  his  traditional  ten  centuries,  appears  merely 
to  have  tasted  it.  A  glance  into  history  and  bio- 
graphy, a  glance  at  the  men  and  women  now  around 
us,  discloses  the  immense  difference  in  the  quality 
of  life,  in  the  content  of  a  month,  of  a  year.  In 
some,  the  moment  is  almost  overfreighted  with 
thought  and  emotion  and  action,  with  experience 
in  its  richest  and  fullest  terms,  a  casket  of  brilliant 
and  many-colored  gems ;  in  others,  the  moment  is 


86  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

80  thin  and  shudderingly  bare,  such  a  pallid  blot 
of  grayness  against  a  desert  of  gray  nothingness, 
that  souls  alive  with  the  red  wine  of  life  hardly, 
or  at  best  with  something  of  a  missionary  effort, 
discern  their  ansemic  brother.  Nor  need  one  go 
so  far  afield.  One  has  only  to  look  within  one's 
own  life,  to  the  times  when  one  has  been  alive 
and  the  times  when  one  has  been  less  alive,  to  see 
this  very  real  difference  in  the  days.  There  come 
to  all  of  us  periods  of  passage  from  less  life  to 
more  life,  and  the  consciousness  of  this  larger  pos- 
session, of  this  awakening,  is  one  of  the  keenest 
joys  that  a  man  may  taste.  Now  what  I  want  to 
point  out  is  that  this  experience  of  life,  taken  at 
its  flood,  all  this  thought,  all  this  emotion,  all  this 
action,  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  Nature,  upon 
the  so-called  outer  world.  Without  it  we  should 
have  nothing  to  concern  ourselves  with,  no  symbols 
for  our  thought,  no  objects  for  our  affection,  no 
theatre  for  our  activity.  The  peasant  deals  with 
the  simple  and  specific  facts  of  Nature.  The  phi- 
losopher deals  with  precisely  the  same  Nature,  only 
in  a  more  comprehensive  and  generalized  fashion. 
The  most  abstract  of  our  ideas  rests  ultimately 
upon  the  most  concrete  of  natural  facts.  This  is 
all  perfectly  obvious,  but  it  is  quite  worth  recalling ; 
for  those  who  have  got  well  on  into  the  intellectual 
life  are  prone  to  talk  as  if  a  few  more  stairs  climbed 
and  they  would  be  passing  into  an  empyrean  quite 
above  and  beyond  anything  so  limited  as  the  pa« 
geantry  of  Nature    In  reality  they  would  be  vanish- 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  37 

ing  into  a  void  by  the  side  of  which  the  day  before 
the  first  day  of  creation  would  be  a  whirlpool  of 
events.  The  dependence  of  the  inner  life  upon  the 
outer  world  both  for  its  content  and  its  imagery 
is  absolute  and  unlimited. 

Although  so  obvious,  it  is  still  worth  while  to  fol- 
low this  thought  into  a  very  important  realm  of  the 
human  drama,  into  the  realm  of  language.  We  are 
all  f&miliar  with  Max  Miiller's  dictum  that  there 
is  no  language  without  thought  and  no  thought 
without  language.  One  will  perhaps  recall  collec- 
tions of  words  which  failed  to  express  any  thought, 
such,  for  example,  as  the  attempted  "  fine  writing  " 
of  those  who  have  not  yet  anything  to  say,  or  the 
succession  of  sounds  made  by  those  '  devastators 
of  the  day,'  lecturers  and  preachers  who  have  felt 
obliged  to  occupy  a  certain  period  of  time;  but 
these  and  all  similar  cases  may,  I  think,  be  properly 
dismissed  in  the  same  way  that  Matthew  Arnold 
dismissed  them,  by  classing  them  as  noise  rather 
than  as  language.  It  is  less  obvious  perhaps  when 
we  come  to  the  second  half  of  the  doctrine,  that 
there  is  no  thought  without  language ;  for  in  the 
progress  of  life  one  does  meet  with  indications  of 
experience  which  belong  to  the  region  of  the  inex- 
pressible. But  even  here,  the  inexpressibility  im- 
plies not  so  much  a  failure  of  language  as  a  failure 
to  grasp  the  experience  so  definitely  as  to  be  able 
to  put  it  into  words.  So  true  is  it  that  thought  and 
language  run  parallel  courses  in  the  mind  that  the 
study  of  comparative  philology  enables  us  to  dis* 


88  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

cem  whether  a  race  is  retrogressive  or  progressive, 
just  as  the  displacement  of  the  lines  in  the  spectrum 
of  a  given  star  tells  us  whether  the  star  is  receding 
from  the  earth  or  approaching  it.  We  may  say 
then  that  just  as  human  consciousness  is  the  one 
experienced  reality,  so  the  expression  of  this  reality 
is  to  be  found  in  language.  Logically  speaking  we 
have  only  three  classes  of  words,  nouns  and  verbs 
and  connectives.  For  convenience  of  treatment, 
the  grammars  name  eight  or  nine,  but  the  pronoun 
and  exclamation  (standing  for  the  noun)  and  the 
adjective  and  article  (as  modifying  its  meaning) 
may  properly  be  included  in  the  one  class,  just  as 
adverb  and  verb  express  a  single  thought,  and 
preposition  and  conjunction  make  the  necessary 
cement.  My  purpose  in  going  into  this  detail  is  to 
point  out  that  language  reduces  to  the  same  three 
fundamentals  that  one  discovers  in  the  physical 
world.  The  entire  content  of  this  physical  world 
resolves  itself  on  the  last  analysis  into  matter  and 
motion  and  relation,  three  elements  which  have 
their  exact  counterpart  in  nouns  and  verbs  and 
connectives.  In  the  physical  world,  we  never  ex- 
perience these  elements  separately.  It  is  matter  in 
motion  in  relation.  So  in  the  mind,  we  have  no 
complete  thought  which  does  not  include  noun  and 
verb,  with  some  implied  relation,  some  of  the 
mathematic  of  existence. 

The  richness  of  the  intellectual  life  is  measured 
in  part  by  the  fullness  of  its  vocabulary.  The  work- 
ingman   is  said   to  get  along  with  two  or  three 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  39 

hundred  words,  while  Shakespeare  used  fifteen  thou- 
sand, and  intermediate  minds  fall  between  the  two 
fortunes.  It  is  also  to  bs  noticed  that  literary  style, 
the  measure  of  success  in  language,  depends  upon  the 
vividness  of  the  physical  images  which  it  creates  in 
the  mind.  The  poet  of  Nature  must  bring  up  dis- 
tinct pictures.  The  poet  of  emotion  must  present 
situations  which  stir  the  emotions.  The  reporter  of 
events  must  not  tell  us  that  they  happened:  he 
must  let  us  see  them  happening.  The  most  sacred, 
the  most  stirring,  the  most  stupendous  words  of  the 
language  fail  of  effect  if  they  are  not  so  used  as  to 
be  rich  in  this  sensuous  imagery. 

This  parallelism  of  consciousness  and  Nature  is 
the  common  fact  which  both  materialism  and  ideal- 
ism are  forever  called  upon  to  face.  The  one  holds 
consciousness  to  be  the  symbolism  of  Nature,  the 
reflection  of  Nature,  the  reaction  which  Nature 
sets  up  in  the  human  soul.  The  other  simply  says 
that  consciousness  is  the  thing  which  we  experience, 
and  that  it  is  wiser  therefore  to  take  consciousness 
as  the  primal  fact,  and  to  regard  Nature  as  the 
symbol,  the  reflection,  the  interpretation  of  the 
humaa  spirit. 

Contrary  to  popular  opinion,  it  is  the  first,  or 
realistic,  view  which  presents  the  greater  difficulties. 
We  may  quote  the  much-quoted  objection  of  all 
the  philosophers  of  idealism  that  every  event  in 
Nature  is  .a  manifestation  in  time,  in  space,  and 
m  causation,  and  then  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  time  has  no  physical  analogue,  that  space  has 


40  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

no  objective  existence,  that  causation  is  an  intel- 
lectual perception  of  relationship.  Even  putting 
aside  the  impossibility  of  any  conception  of  physi- 
cal space,  we  are  thrown  back  on  an  equal  difficulty 
in  trying  to  image  it ;  for  either  it  proceeds  infi- 
nitely in  all  directions,  which  is  unthinkable,  or 
else  it  is  bounded,  which  is  equally  unthinkable,  for 
a  boundary  makes  necessary  the  thought  of  an 
equally  definite  something  on  the  other  side  of  the 
bound.  One  meets  with  no  greater  success  in  deal- 
ing with  the  ultimates  of  physical  science,  with  mat- 
ter and  motion.  When  all  is  done  and  said,  matter 
remains  explainable  only  in  terms  of  human  expe- 
rience. Every  attempt  ends  in  metaphysics.  From 
the  atoms  of  Lucretius  to  the  vortex-whirls  of  Lord 
Kelvin,  we  find  metaphysical  units  in  place  of 
physical  ones. 

But  whether  we  view  Nature  objectively  or  sub- 
jectively we  must  admit  the  ceaseless,  all-important 
interplay  between  man  and  Nature,  and  must  make 
Nature  an  integral,  ever-present  element  of  the 
social  purpose. 

The  third  element  in  the  philosophic  idea,  the 
belief  that  the  world-process  is  esthetic,  involves 
no  antagonism  of  view  between  the  most  divergent 
lines  of  philosophy.  Even  pessimism  and  opti- 
mism take  common  ground.  The  only  confusion  is 
in  the  time  element.  Pessimism  makes  life  a  pro- 
cess of  escape  from  a  world  of  present  evil  into  the 
brightness  of  a  world  to  come.  Optimism  makes 
life  a  present  passing  into  the  larger  good.    It  ia 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  41 

interesting  to  note  that  in  ignorant  and  literal 
minds,  Christianity,  as  suggested  in  the  last  chapter, 
is  a  pronounced  form  of  pessimism,  and  as  an  his- 
toric creed  must  even  be  so  classed,  while  the  best 
practice  is  the  very  opposite. 

In  spite  of  this  convergence  of  belief,  it  is  quite 
worth  while  to  approach  the  matter  by  two  oppo- 
site paths.  Let  us  begin  with  the  subjective. 
The  one  abiding  impulse  of  the  human  spirit  is 
towards  perfection,  and  the  study  and  pursuit  of 
perfection  is  culture.  It  may  seem  a  hard  saying 
in  the  face  of  what  the  human  spirit  has  done,  in 
the  face  of  its  architecture,  of  its  mills  and  shops 
and  houses,  in  the  face  of  its  competitions  and  in- 
stitutions, most  of  all  in  the  face  of  its  men  and 
women  and  children,  that  is  to  say  of  present 
society,  of  the  human  spirit  in  its  aggregate  expres- 
sion. It  may  seem  a  hard  saying  that  all  this 
rawness  and  hideousness  has  for  its  abiding  im- 
pulse the  study  and  pursuit  of  perfection.  But  it 
is  a  true  saying.  The  failure  is  due  to  a  failure  to 
see  in  what  per-^ection  consists.  It  is  due  to  a  false 
point  of  view.  The  man  who  chooses  to  go  to  the 
devil  does  so  beoause  he  fancies  that  the  devil  has 
more  substantial  good  to  offer  him  than  has  his  own 
misshapen  conception  of  deity.  This  is  the  story 
of  temptation  everywhere.  One  can  imagine  an 
insane  person's  doing  the  imperfect  thing  con- 
sciously and  on  purpose,  traveling  south  in  the 
avowed  hope  of  reaching  the  north,  and  otherwise 
defeating  his  own  ends  by  contradictory  means. 


IS  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

But  one  cannot  imagine  a  sane  person's  doing  any 
such  thing.  When  one  builds  a  house,  the  pur- 
pose is  protection  and  comfort,  and  perfection  would 
be  the  largest  possible  measure  of  protection  and 
comfort.  One  may  build  a  leaky  roof  and  incon- 
venient rooms  ;  one  may  make  inadequate  provisions 
for  light  and  air  and  heat ;  one  may  offend  the  sense 
of  beauty  at  each  and  every  turn.  These  things 
are  constantly  done  through  carelessness  and  mean- 
ness; but  given  a  certain  amount  of  labor  and 
material,  the  only  defensible  grounds  for  its  expend- 
iture would  be  the  getting  of  the  utmost  possible 
good  out  of  it. 

And  similarly  with  the  less  obvious  operations, 
from  the  smallest  to  the  greatest,  up  to  the  very 
greatest  of  all,  to  life  itself.  The  only  sane  pur- 
pose in  life  is  the  quest  of  perfection.  It  is  im- 
possible to  deliberately  choose  a  smaller  good  in 
preference  to  a  larger  good,  for  choice  means  the 
selection  of  the  thing  most  to  be  desired.  One 
may  mistake  the  values.  One  may  choose  as  the 
greater  good  what  is  really  the  smaller  good,  but 
one  may  not  do  it  consciously.  The  glory  of  the 
imperfect,  about  which  one  hears  so  much,  must 
not  be  misunderstood.  The  glorious  thing  in  the 
imperfect  is  just  its  measure  of  perfection,  either 
actual  or  potential,  and  nothing  more.  To  believe 
anything  else  is,  I  think,  to  look  through  a  glass 
very  darkly.  The  glory  that  redeems  every  life, 
however  mean  and  squalid,  is  the  glory  of  the  per- 
fect, and  this  is  what  the  veriest  drunkards  and 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  43 

harlots  are  seeking.  In  moments  of  clearer  vision, 
moments  of  remorse,  the  standards  become  purified 
and  rationalized,  and  the  soul  accuses  itself  of 
having  followed  a  false  light,  of  knowingly,  deliber- 
ately choosing  the  smaller  good.  And  this  confu- 
sion in  the  time  element,  —  for  such  it  is,  —  this 
shifting  of  the  point  of  view  of  one  moment  to  the 
action  of  a  totally  different  moment  has  given  us 
the  unpsychological  doctrine  of  deliberate  sin,  and 
all  the  hopelessness  and  impossibility  of  the  doc- 
trines which  group  themselves  around  it.  But 
passing  back  from  the  moment  of  reflection  and 
remorse  to  the  moment  of  action,  one  cannot  help 
seeing  how  utterly  inadequate  is  such  an  explana- 
tion. There  is  deliberate,  conscious  choice,  but 
from  the  very  nature  of  our  mental  processes,  it 
must  be  the  choice  of  that  which  seems  to  us  at  the 
moment  the  thing  most  to  be  desired.  And  this 
conclusion  cannot  be  escaped  unless  we  are  willing  to 
subscribe  to  the  simpler  and  more  extreme  case,  and 
believe  that  a  man  in  our  own  northern  hemisphere 
may  consciously  set  out  for  the  equator,  and  as  per- 
sistently travel  towards  the  Great  Bear.  As  soon 
as  one  realizes  that  this  conscious  choice  of  evil  is 
psychologically  impossible,  one  realizes  also  that  the 
moral  law  is  absolutely  compelling.  One  may  not 
see  the  right,  and  while  still  seeing  it,  do  the  wrong. 
It  is  impossible.  One  may  see  the  right,  and  then 
aftenoards  do  the  wrong,  like  the  man  who  saw  his 
image  in  the  glass,  and  forthwith  looked  away  and 
£orgot  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 


44  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

One  may  choose  between  a  present  pleasure  and 
a  future  benefit,  and  choose  very  badly  from  our 
own  point  of  view;  but  in  order  that  the  choice 
may  be  made  in  favor  of  the  present,  the  pleasure 
must  assume  dimensions  quite  beyond  those  of  the 
declined  benefit. 

This  view  does  appear  at  first  sight  distinctly 
appalling.  The  universal  charity  and  toleration 
which  it  makes  necessary  seem  to  undermine  that 
wholesome  public  condemnation  from  which  so 
much  good  is  always  expected  to  come.  But  some- 
how the  good  does  not  arrive  in  any  very  large  mea- 
sure, and  the  gentler  method  of  dealing  with  evil- 
doers, the  method  of  pity  and  enlightenment  rather 
than  of  condemnation,  has  been  recommended  by 
no  less  a  teacher  than  Jesus. 

This  belief  that  the  moral  law  is  absolutely  com- 
pelling, that  a  man  may  not  look  upon  the  right 
and  do  the  wrong,  reduces  the  really  significant 
world-problems  to  one,  —  to  the  problem  of  educa- 
tion. If  knowledge  and  virtue  be  one  ;  if  ignorance 
and  vice  be  one,  then  surely  the  thing  which  a 
man  would  desire  very  earnestly  for  himself  and 
desire  for  others  must  be  that  perfect  knowledge 
which  would  lead  to  the  perfect  life.  And  so  I 
must  believe  that  among  thoughtful  people  the 
pursuit  of  culture,  that  is,  the  study  of  perfection, 
must  be  the  conscious  purpose  in  life ;  and  that 
among  careless  people  the  pursuit  of  perfection 
must  still  be  the  real  purpose  in  life,  however  it 
may  be  obscured  by  a  failure  to  see  in  what  perfeo« 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  45 

tion  consists,  and  by  a  failure  to  adapt  the  means 
to  the  ends.  The  impulse  towards  perfection  is  a 
blind  impulse  on  the  part  of  the  great  mass  of  man- 
kind. The  mission  of  the  social  teacher  is  to  make 
this  impulse  conscious,  and  to  make  it  intelligent. 
That  power  which  makes  for  righteousness,  that  is, 
for  excellence  and  beauty,  is  in  reality  the  onrush 
of  a  world-process  which  is  essentially  esthetic. 

This  brings  us  very  naturally  to  a  consideration 
of  that  other  more  objective  path  of  approach  which 
science  offers  under  the  name  of  evolution.  Were 
we  quite  to  ignore  the  philosophical  argument  in- 
dicated in  the  first  chapter  and  the  psychological 
argument  outlined  in  this,  and  limit  ourselves 
strictly  to  the  study  of  organic  nature,  we  should 
still  observe  that  however  unconscious  the  actors 
in  the  struggle  for  life,  the  victory  would  still  be 
with  the  more  perfect  organism.  The  process  of 
natural  selection  goes  on  working  quite  regardless 
of  the  consciousness  or  unconsciousness  of  its  ma- 
terial. The  unfit,  the  deficient,  the  vicious,  are 
eliminated  by  the  operation  of  a  process  more  in- 
exorable than  the  sweep  of  human  law ;  for  unfitness 
and  deficiency  and  vice  are  only  general  terms  for 
those  qualities  and  actions  which  lead  to  unfavor- 
able, that  is,  to  destructive,  results.  Our  own  hu- 
man, conscious  morality  is  simply  the  lesson  we  have 
learned  from  the  experience  of  life.  Things  are 
right  or  wrong,  not  through  the  indwelling  of  some 
abstract,  magician  principle  which  might  have  been 
otherwise  had  God  so  willed,  but  for  the  simpler 


40  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

and  more  divine  reason  that  they  do  or  do  not  lead 
to  the  furtherance  of  human  welfare  and  happi- 
ness. When  this  is  recognized,  and  men  lead  the 
glad  life  of  an  intelligent  morality,  they  have  the 
great  reward  which  has  ever  been  the  portion  of 
those  nations  who  have  cultivated  intelligence 
and  loved  righteousness.  It  has  been  the  same, 
back  through  all  the  unconscious  stages  of  the 
world-life,  back  through  unreflecting  man  and  the 
brutes  and  the  plants.  Before  man  came,  and 
the  principle  of  human  usage  intervened  to  change 
the  course  of  evolution  by  introducing  a  new  stan- 
dard of  fitness;  before  man  came,  each  inch  of 
ground  was  occupied  by  that  plant  which  under 
the  given  conditions  of  soil  and  sunshine,  tempera- 
ture and  moisture,  could  produce  the  sturdiest  and 
most  vigorous  offspring.  Before  man  came,  the 
battle  of  the  brutes  gave  the  victory,  not  to  the 
strongest,  not  to  the  swiftest,  but  to  the  wisest  and 
most  cunning.  And  when  man  came,  and  entered 
into  possession  of  a  heritage  his  by  right  of  greater 
intelligence  and  nobler  worth,  beast  and  plant 
came  under  the  sway  of  a  new  standard  of  selec- 
tion, —  the  standard  of  human  usableness.  Mam- 
moth and  mastodon,  lion  and  tiger,  serpent  and 
scorpion,  have  passed,  or  are  passing.  In  their 
stead  one  finds  camel  and  horse,  cattle  and  sheep, 
poultry  and  game.  In  the  fields  and  gardens,  one 
finds  the  same  transformation,  the  same  giving  over 
of  the  world  to  the  things  of  use  and  beauty.  In 
the  human  world,  even  before  consciousness  came, 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  47 

the  world-process  moved  on  resistlessly  towards  per- 
fection. In  spite  of  local  lapses,  in  spite  of  retro- 
grade eruptions  of  force,  we  see  the  steady  elimina- 
tion of  evil,  the  steady  growth  of  good.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  human  mon- 
sters were  no  longer  possible.  With  the  progress 
of  that  century,  the  world  came  into  consciousness 
of  its  own  destiny,  —  of  the  destiny  of  develop- 
ment. And  now,  at  the  opening  of  the  twentieth 
century,  with  whom  does  potential  victory  rest? 
Surely  a  man  with  his  eyes  even  half  open  must 
answer  that  it  rests  with  those  nations  who  are  the 
most  wholesome,  the  most  intelligent,  the  most 
moral,  —  in  a  word,  with  those  nations  the  most 
enamored  of  perfection.  And  in  the  nations  them- 
selves, victory  rests  with  those  individuals  who  are 
strongest  with  the  strength  of  the  spirit.  The  tide 
of  human  life  rises  the  highest  in  the  men  and 
women  who  are  most  highly  evolved,  who  possess 
the  greatest  human  wealth  of  strength  and  beauty 
and  accomplishment  and  love,  who  most  perfectly 
adapt  means  to  ends,  who  select  life-giving,  con- 
serving ends,  the  men  and  women  who  have  the 
power  of  benignant  personality.  We  have  a  deca- 
dent class.  It  is  quite  true.  But  the  mark  of 
death  rests  upon  it.  We  may  pity,  but  we  need 
feel  no  alarm.  The  red  wine  of  life  is  in  no  danger 
of  turning  sour,  for  it  is  held  in  another  chalice. 
Two  things  there  are  that  make  straight  for  degen- 
eration :  one  is  idleness,  and  the  other  is  disregard 
of  the  social  welfare.     But  happily  both  of  these 


48  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

qualities  are  self-corrective,  for  they  are  both  self- 
destructive.  Idleness  leads  to  illness,  and  social 
disregard  means  the  withdrawal  of  that  sympathy 
and  good-will  on  the  part  of  one's  fellows,  without 
which  one  cannot  enjoy  radiant,  buoyant  life. 

As  an  objective,  scientific,  unconscious  opera- 
tion, evolution  still  declares,  with  philosophy  and 
psychology,  that  the  world-process  is  esthetic. 

The  social  purpose  which  flows  out  of  these  three 
elements  of  the  philosophic  idea,  the  unity  of  man, 
the  interplay  between  man  and  Nature,  the  esthetic 
process  of  the  world-life,  is  so  plain  that  he  who 
runs  may  read.  The  social  purpose  is  a  humanized 
world,  composed  of  men  and  women  and  children, 
sound  and  accomplished  and  beautiful  in  body ; 
intelligent  and  sympathetic  in  mind ;  reverent  in 
spirit ;  living  in  an  environment  rich  in  the  largest 
elements  of  use  and  beauty ;  and  occupying  them- 
selves with  the  persistent  study  and  pursuit  of  per- 
fection. In  a  word,  the  social  purpose  is  human 
wealth.  There  is  but  one  interest  in  life,  and  that 
is  the  human  interest.  All  that  makes  for  human 
wealth,  for  the  sound,  strong,  beautiful,  accom- 
plished organism  ;  for  an  enlarged  and  rationalized 
conception  of  Nature ;  for  the  unfolding  and  per- 
fecting of  the  human  spirit,  —  all  this  is  light ; 
and  all  that  makes  against  human  wealth,  however 
sanctioned  by  law  and  custom,  platitudes  and  pre- 
judice, —  all  this  is  darkness. 

Education  is  simply  the  practical  process  by 
which  we  realize  this  social  purpose  and  acquire 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  49 

human  wealth.  It  is  a  process,  therefore,  which  is 
very  far  from  being  limited  to  the  sc]^oolroom. 
It  covers  rather  the  entire  twenty-four  hours,  the 
entire  year,  the  entire  lifetime.  The  term  edu- 
cation will  be  used  in  this  comprehensive  sense 
throughout  the  following  inquiry.  While  it  will 
be  assumed  that  no  man  is  wholly  virtuous  who  is 
imperfect,  it  will  also  be  assumed  with  equal  insist- 
ence that  an  educational  process  is  moral  which 
creates  in  the  individual  the  largest  attainable 
measure  of  perfection.  It  follows,  of  course,  that 
the  process  is  immoral  if  it  falls  below  the  best. 
It  is  worth  remarking  that  most  of  our  present 
schemes  of  education  are  immoral. 

Human  wealth  may  be  pursued  in  two  ways: 
either  for  quality,  as  when  we  try  to  produce  a 
highly  endowed,  superior  individual ;  or  for  quan- 
tity, as  when  we  try  by  commonplace  and  partial 
methods  to  make  the  masses  a  trifle  more  human. 
One  is  the  method  of  aristocracy ;  the  other,  of 
elementary  democracy.  Both  methods  are  poor, 
for  neither  satisfies  the  social  purpose.  The  social 
purpose  is  frankly  avaricious  of  the  utmost  pos- 
sible amount  of  good  fortune ;  and  this  divine 
greed  can  only  be  satisfied  when,  as  a  society,  we 
deliberately  and  consciously  resolve  to  make  the 
very  best  out  of  every  individual,  to  make  him 
highly  endowed,  to  make  him  superior  even  to  the 
full  measure  of  his  capacity.  A  nation  which  fails 
to  do  this  fails  to  realize  the  social  purpose,  and 
must  still  be  accounted  barbarous.     It  has  not  yet 


60  EDUCATION  AND  UFE 

come  into  conscious  harmony  with  the  great  esthetic 
world-process.  Looking  over  the  earth  to-day  one 
sees  a  goodly  and  an  increasing  company  of  de- 
lightful, cultivated,  social,  human  people ;  but  one 
does  not  see  a  single  nation  that  is  other  than  bar- 
barous. Even  America,  the  greatest  of  them  all, 
is  not  yet  social,  has  not  yet  thrown  herself  unre- 
servedly into  the  pursuit  of  human  wealth.  We 
make  a  fetish  of  the  public  school  with  its  cheap 
information  and  shop-keeping  accomplishments, 
but  we  have  not  yet  conceived  of  human  life  as  a 
moral  and  esthetic  revelation  of  the  universe,  or 
of  education  as  a  practical  process  of  entering  into 
this  tremendous  possession.  Even  the  bounty  of 
Nature,  the  indisputable  heritage  of  the  collective 
nation,  her  fields  and  forests,  oil-wells  and  coal- 
mines, mineral  deposits  and  stone  quarries,  water- 
power  and  roadways,  —  all  this  is  handed  over  to 
the  crude  ministration  of  profit,  and  the  majority 
of  America's  children  are  reduced  to  the  position 
of  wage-takers  and  servants,  with  little  time  or 
strength  or  heart  for  the  carrying  out  of  the  true 
social  purpose,  the  pursuit  of  the  higher  human 
wealth.  The  bulk  of  our  laws  have  to  do  with 
merchandise  and  real  estate.  The  few  that  con- 
cern themselves  with  man  are  mainly  prohibitive, 
the  things  that  he  may  not  do.  The  realization  of 
the  social  purpose  demands  a  more  positive  ideal 
than  this.  It  does  not  mean  restrictions,  restraints, 
the  subordination  of  one  class  of  citizens  to  an- 
other.     It  means  liberation,  freedom  of  motion, 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  61 

choice  of  occupation,  enlargement  of  opportunity, 
the  absence  of  all  restraint  save  that  imposed  by 
the  equal  good  of  the  neighbor  and  the  perfecting 
of  the  self. 

The  present  is  a  time  of  transition.  The  newer 
ideal  of  the  social  purpose  is  stirring  the  hearts  of 
men.  The  old  abuses  are  being  called  in  question. 
The  larger  life  and  the  larger  human  wealth  are 
being  canvassed  as  possibilities  of  realization.  It 
is  a  time  peculiarly  full  of  hope  and  promise.  One 
may  not  deceive  one's  self  into  thinking  that  the 
individual  life  can  be  idealized  while  the  national 
life  remains  unsocial,  for  it  is  a  matter  of  social 
complicity. 

In  its  broadest  sense  the  ideal  social  type  is  a 
perfect  human  life,  and  every  activity  of  one's 
neighbor  or  of  one's  self  which  makes  against  this 
ideal  perfection  must  be  counted  as  anti-social. 

The  unity  of  man  makes  it  impossible  to  reach 
perfection  in  any  one  aspect  without  covering  all 
aspects.  The  social  purpose  is  only  realized  by 
the  idealizing  and  perfecting  of  all  that  concerns 
daily  human  living.  As  a  practical  problem,  it  has 
to  do  with  a  man's  occupation,  with  his  food,  with 
his  dress,  with  his  dwelling,  with  his  health,  with 
his  organic  power,  with  his  family,  with  his  friends, 
with  his  pleasures,  with  his  thoughts,  with  his  emo- 
tions, —  in  a  word,  with  every  element  that  touches 
or  makes  up  his  life.  The  same  unity  which  char- 
acterizes our  view  of  his  physiological  constitution 
must  characterize  our  view  of  him  as  an  individual 


02  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

in  action.  All  elements  in  the  daily  life  wHich 
make  against  human  wealth  are  rigidly  excluded, 
and  there  is  no  compromise  permissible.  Such  a 
view  closes  many  of  the  conventional  doors.  One 
may  do  nothing  which  makes  one  less  of  a  man,  less 
alive,  less  clever,  less  honest,  less  happy,  less  beau- 
tiful, —  nothing,  in  fact,  which  makes  one  less  com- 
plete and  less  universal.  One  may  participate  in 
no  activity  which  involves  the  degradation  of  one's 
self  or  the  degradation  of  another.  The  feeling 
that  life  is  something  very  sacred  and  very  beau- 
tiful, and  that  it  may  not  lightly  be  squandered, 
would  lead  one  to  scrutinize  even  those  occupa- 
tions which  society  has  stamped  with  approval. 

Every  performance  may  be  looked  at  from  two 
distinct  points  of  view :  that  of  the  thing  done  and 
that  of  the  doer.  These  are  the  two  terms  neces- 
sary to  bring  the  thing  about.  We  may  call  the 
one  point  of  view  the  non-human,  and  the  other 
the  human.  It  seldom  happens  that  the  outlook 
in  any  performance  is  strictly  one  or  the  other.  It 
usually  involves  a  little  of  both.  An  industrial 
performance  from  the  standpoint  of  the  market  is 
strictly  non-human,  for  it  has  to  do  only  with  the 
thing  produced.  An  educational  performance,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  philosopher,  is  strictly  human, 
for  it  has  to  do  solely  with  the  agent,  the  doer. 
But  industrial  performances  are  more  and  more 
coming  under  the  eye  of  the  social  philosopher, 
and  are  introducing  the  human  element.  In  the 
same  way  educational  performances  are  coming 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  53 

into  touch  with  the  market,  and  are  submitting  to 
the  non-human  standards  of  measurement.  Both 
industry  and  education  may  pass  quite  over  to  the 
opposite  extreme.  In  the  hands  of  Tolstoy  and 
William  Morris  work  becomes  a  human  perform- 
ance, whose  value  depends  upon  its  effect  on  the 
worker,  upon  the  joy  and  development  it  brings 
him,  and  secondarily  upon  the  thing  produced. 
So,  in  the  hands  of  the  commercialists,  education 
ceases  to  be  a  human  process,  and  is  evaluated 
solely  by  the  utility  of  what  is  or  may  be  produced 
by  the  workers. 

In  the  matter  of  the  professions  even,  the  appli- 
cation of  this  human  yardstick  brings  much  into 
question.  One  finds  many  cases  of  sweet,  disin- 
terested service,  but  one  also  finds  the  hungry 
profit-taker  with  scant  hold  on  the  vision  of  per- 
fection, and  a  keen  appetite  for  pottage.  The 
ostensible  purpose  of  the  professional  life  is  to 
render  social  service,  and  this  requires  that  the  ser- 
vice itself  be  true,  and  the  server  himself  be  sound. 
If  you  accept  the  unity  of  man,  if  you  believe  in 
perfection  as  a  worthy  end  of  human  endeavor,  then 
no  service  is  possible  which  harms  your  body,  which 
occupies  your  mind  with  petty,  ignoble  matters, 
which  makes  your  heart  less  genuine  and  sympa- 
thetic. A  perversion  or  stunting  of  any  side  of 
your  nature  is  an  inroad  upon  the  whole.  Only 
that  service  is  possible  for  you  and  good  for  the 
community  which  leaves  you  at  the  end  a  truer, 
sounder,  more  wholesome  man. 


M  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

As  Emerson  somewhere  says,  who  cares  what 
you  do,  if  you  spoil  yourself  in  the  doing. 

Most  of  the  calls  to  a  false  social  service  have  as 
their  bait  the  involved  profit.  I  have  heard  that 
for  everything  we  do,  we  have  two  reasons ;  one 
is  a  good  reason,  and  the  other  is  the  real  reason. 
Take  away  the  fees  and  how  many  sound  healthy 
minds  would  be  willing  to  spend  their  days  in  an 
atmosphere  of  preventable  disease  and  uncleanness ; 
how  many  men  with  good  red  blood  in  their  veins 
would  be  willing  to  waste  their  lives  in  stores  and 
counting-rooms  ;  how  many  lawyers  would  squabble 
over  doubtful  rights  ;  how  many  clergymen  would 
preach  polite  sermons  to  people  who  do  not  listen  ; 
how  many  teachers  would  consent  to  teach  under 
conditions  which  they  know  to  be  harmful  to  both 
themselves  and  the  children  ?  But  the  fees  do  not 
make  it  right  so  to  waste  a  life. 

If  we  turn  to  the  productive  occupations,  to 
farming,  mining,  and  manufacturing,  the  impossi- 
bilities are  quite  as  numerous.  The  home  farm  is 
still  beautiful,  where  it  is  not  made  a  drudgery  by 
poverty,  or  a  mere  commercial  venture  by  greed. 
But  the  factory  farms  of  the  South  and  West  are  not 
beautiful.  Humanly  speaking,  they  are  hideous. 
The  great  harvests  are  gathered  by  men  who  can 
have  no  love  for  the  soil  and  no  interest  in  the 
bread  which  comes  off  of  it,  for  the  conditions  pre- 
clude love  and  interest.  The  whole  operation  is  for 
profit,  and  this  not  for  the  workers  themselves,  but 
for  the  men  and  women  who  exploit  their  labor. 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  65 

The  majority  of  people  have  a  very  strong  feeling 
against  fortunes  made  in  the  liquor  traffic,  because 
the  results  to  both  bodies  and  minds  are  so  ob- 
viously unsocial ;  but  the  same  sensitiveness  does 
not  extend  to  the  taking  of  large  dividends  and 
profits  from  industries  and  enterprises  which  are 
gathered  none  the  less  surely  at  the  cost  of  human 
degradation  and  poverty  of  spirit  and  hopelessness. 
Modern  society  still  carries  out  its  private  purposes 
at  the  expense  of  human  life.  The  trouble  with 
these  multitudinous  evil-doers  is  that  they  have  no 
restraining  sense  of  a  high  social  purpose  more  ab- 
solute than  any  mere  individual  convenience.  To 
these  deaths  you  and  I  consent,  and  we  consent 
quite  as  thoroughly  to  the  unspeakable  degrada- 
tion of  our  large  cities,  to  the  death  of  innocence, 
of  health,  of  happiness,  of  hope,  of  all  that  makes 
human  life  better  than  the  life  of  the  beasts,  we 
consent  to  all  this,  when  we  choose  as  our  occupation 
any  operation  which  gathers  its  profits  from  the 
forced  labor  of  other  people,  which  exploits  human 
life.  We  are  false  to  our  belief  in  the  unity  of 
man  and  his  impulse  towards  perfection  when  we 
accept  any  social  ideal  which  involves  physical,  in- 
tellectual, emotional  harm  to  any  member  of  the 
social  group,  which  withholds  a  wholesome  life  of 
body  and  mind  and  heart  from  the  lowest  and 
meanest  of  them  all. 

This  brief  criticism  of  occupation  is  radical,  pos- 
sibly severe,  but  it  is  unavoidable  as  a  logical  con- 
clusion from  the  philosophic  idea,  and  furthermore 


56  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  it  is  no  criticism  oik 
the  human  actors  themselves.  They  are  all  striving 
practically  after  a  perfection  such  as  they  see.  The 
manufacturer  who  works  for  low  wages  and  large 
output  and  high  profits  does  so  because  these  things 
represent  to  him  the  perfection  of  industrial  opera- 
tions. The  trade's  union,  striking  for  higher  wages 
and  ignoring  the  squalor  and  hideousness  of  life  in 
a  factory  town,  does  so  because  for  it  high  wages 
constitute  the  perfection  of  successful  work.  The 
merchant,  buying  his  wares  in  the  cheapest  market 
and  selling  them  in  the  dearest,  believes  that  profit 
constitutes  the  perfection  in  commerce.  The  specu- 
lator, watching  social  movements  and  needs,  and 
appropriating  to  his  private  purse  values  uncon- 
sciously created  by  society  and  belonging  to  it, 
does  so  because  this  sort  of  cleverness  constitutes 
for  him  perfection  in  business.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered in  dealing  with  these  enemies  of  the  true 
social  purpose,  that  the  same  impulse  towards  per- 
fection stirs  in  them  as  in  the  men  of  clearer  in- 
sight. The  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  not  the  way 
of  denunciation,  much  less  the  way  of  violence,  but 
the  way  of  enlightenment,  —  "  Come,  let  us  reason 
together."  It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  while 
some  classes  suffer  more  severely  than  others  under 
the  present  imperfect  social  order,  it  is  nevertheless 
true  that  all  suffer.  The  burden  falls  the  heaviest 
upon  the  working  class,  the  proletariat ;  but  as  this 
class  is  by  all  odds  numerically  the  strongest,  its 
misfortunes  are  due  to  its  own  ignorance  much 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  67 

more  than  to  the  deliberate  selfishness  of  those  more 
fortunately  placed.  In  a  country  of  almost  uni- 
versal male  suffrage,  the  path  of  the  true  social 
purpose  is  open,  just  as  soon  as  the  majority  is  suf- 
ficiently enlightened  to  desire  it. 

It  is  impossible,  in  speaking  of  society  as  it  now 
exists,  to  avoid  the  use  of  the  word  "  class."  No 
amount  of  political  oratory  can  conceal  the  fact 
that  even  in  the  Great  Republic  we  have  as  dis- 
tinct social  classes  as  exist  under  the  oldest  mon- 
archies. That  is  to  say,  we  have  not  achieved 
democracy.  Within  a  class  there  is  ample  room 
for  every  human  interest  and  occupation,  but  be- 
tween classes  there  can  never  be  anything  but 
essential  antagonism.  The  social  purpose,  there- 
fore, which  flows  out  of  the  philosophic  idea  can 
only  be  realized  by  the  suppression  of  class  dis- 
tinctions, and  the  glad  passage  of  society  into  a 
single  class  bent  on  the  perfecting  of  every  indi- 
vidual, and  on  the  enrichment  of  Nature,  that  is, 
the  environment.  Furthermore,  this  social  pur- 
pose is  international,  and  when  realized  would 
mean  the  federation  of  the  nations.  For  the  per- 
fecting of  the  individual  life  and  the  beautifying 
of  the  individual  environment  we  want  the  whole 
world  to  minister.  For  the  growth  of  the  human 
spirit,  we  want  a  sympathy  that  shall  stop  at  no 
political  boundaries,  but  shall  be  as  broad  as  the 
world  itself.  The  absence  of  class  and  national 
boundaries  between  the  children  of  men  is  a  most 
important  element  in  the  social  purpose,  and  it 


68  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

must  be  clearly  emphasized  because  the  educa- 
tional process  by  which  that  purpose  is  to  be 
realized  must  always  be  touched  by  this  spirit  of 
the  universal  brotherhood. 

Each  century  states  its  Utopia.  Though  the 
dream  were  never  realized,  it  were  still  worth  the 
dreaming,  for  no  vision  of  a  fairer  earth  leaves 
man  quite  where  it  found  him.  But  it  is  notice- 
able, and  the  occasion  of  boundless  hope,  that 
succeeding  Utopias  come  nearer  to  the  actual  world, 
and  spring  increasingly  out  of  human  experience. 
No  Utopia  can  be  imposed  from  without.  It  must 
grow  up  within  the  human  heart  itself,  and  not  in 
one  heart  alone,  but  in  the  very  heart  of  society. 
It  is  therefore  the  result  of  education,  of  that  pro- 
cess which  brings  a  man  out  of  the  limited  world 
of  the  primitive  savage  instincts  into  the  larger 
world  of  the  enlightened  emotions.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  overestimate  the  importance  of  founding  our 
system  of  education  upon  a  true  social  purpose. 
The  outer  life  is  but  the  expression  of  the  inner 
spirit.  Education  is  an  ideal  adventure.  If  it 
can  be  made  true  to  the  social  purpose,  then  the 
social  purpose  is  realized ;  for  the  obstacles  to  the 
realization  of  that  purpose  are  not  found  in  any 
outer  events,  but  solely  in  current  public  opinion. 

But  one  must  have  patience.  To  make  over  our 
educational  system  into  conformity  with  the  social 
ideal  is  not  the  work  of  a  day,  but  of  a  generation. 
To  redeem  society  is  the  work  of  succeeding  gen- 
erations.    Meanwhile  what  may  a  man  do,  upon 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  69 

whose  heart  this  ideal  of  a  social  purpose  has  laid 
firm  hold  ?  The  answer  is  simple :  he  must  be  true 
to  his  philosophy.  He  may  do  anything  which 
makes  for  the  health  of  the  body,  anything  which 
means  fresh,  pure  air ;  wholesome  food  and  drink ; 
suitable  dress ;  adequate  exercise ;  manly  work  of 
hand  and  eye  and  muscle,  —  anything  which  means 
increased  health  and  sensitiveness  and  power,  in- 
creased beauty  and  usableness  and  delight.  He 
may  do  anything  which  makes  for  the  health  of  the 
mind,  anything  which  means  sanity,  alertness,  relia- 
bility, anything  which  means  increased  flexibility 
and  order  and  strength.  He  may  do  anything 
which  makes  for  the  health  of  the  spirit,  anything 
which  gives  it  greater  play  and  truthfulness  and 
power,  anything  which  adds  to  the  reverent  delight 
of  life.  But  as  this  separation  of  man  into  the 
members  of  a  triple  alliance  is  a  mere  convenience 
of  speech,  one  is  bound  by  the  requirements  of  the 
higher  life  to  consider  as  equally  sacred  the  health 
of  the  body  and  the  mind  and  the  spirit.  To 
satisfy  the  law,  one  must  do  more  than  simply 
omit  to  profane  the  health  of  the  person,  one  must 
work  for  its  positive  betterment. 

It  is  equally  imperative  that  one  may  consent  to 
no  mean  and  shabby  environment.  One  must  sur- 
round one's  self  with  wholesomeness  and  beauty. 
The  parallelism  between  consciousness  and  Nature 
makes  this  insistence  upon  convenience  of  arrange- 
ment and  respect  for  form  and  color  more  than  a 
mere  matter  of  taste.     It  makes  it  a  matter  of 


'60  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

moral  obligation.  A  man's  surroundings  are  not 
accidental.  They  are  a  part  of  himself,  and 
must  likewise  be  chastened  and  purified.  An 
ugly  room,  badly  lighted,  poorly  ventilated,  inade- 
quately heated,  must  be  regarded  as  morally  repre- 
hensible, whether  provided  for  one's  self  or  for 
somebody  else.  It  is  the  projection  of  an  evil 
thought,  and,  entering  into  consciousness,  lowers 
the  level  of  human  life.  This  view  of  Nature 
makes  architecture  and  the  fine  arts,  music  and 
the  drama,  landscape  gardening  and  home-build- 
ing, roadways  and  bridges,  an  expression  of  the 
social  life  of  a  community,  and  therefore  open  to 
that  more  comprehensive  esthetic  judgment  which 
includes  morality  as  well  as  questions  of  form  and 
color  and  sound.  Nor  is  it  sufficient  merely  to 
wish  for  beautiful  things ;  one  must  know  them 
and  attain  them.  This  requirement,  also,  must 
find  adequate  expression  in  the  educational  pro- 
cess. 

Furthermore,  one  must  remember  that  in  the 
world-process  the  stress  is  laid  upon  the  best.  To  at- 
tain less  than  the  best  that  is  possible  is  unesthetic, 
that  is,  immoral.  Life  is  not  an  affair  for  any 
modesty  of  purpose.  That  is  a  shabby  bit  of  lazi- 
ness. Life  is  an  adventure  quite  worthy  of  the 
superlative.  To  have  the  strongest  and  most  beau- 
tiful body,  the  most  intelligent  and  most  accom- 
plished mind,  the  most  reverent  and  most  sympa- 
thetic spirit ;  to  wear  the  most  pleasing  clothes ; 
to  inhabit  the  most  beautiful  house ;  to  work  in 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  61 

the  most  charming  garden ;  to  produce  the  most 
admirable  wares  ;  to  establish  with  others  the  most 
ideal  relations,  —  this  is  the  formula  for  daily  life 
into  which  the  philosophic  idea  literally  translates 
itself.  To  carry  out  this  formula  is  to  attain  hap- 
piness for  the  self  and  also  to  add  to  the  happiness 
of  every  other  soul  whom  such  a  life  touches.  It 
is  a  good  motto :  "  Le  meilleur  c\st  assez  hon  pour 
moV^ 

It  is  this  attempt  to  translate  the  philosophic 
idea  into  a  practical  daily  programme  for  the  in- 
dividual man  which  throws  out  so  many  currently 
accepted  occupations  as  quite  unworthy  of  the 
human  spirit.  It  does  so  because  the  point  of  view 
is  changed,  changed  from  the  thing  done  to  the 
men  and  women  who  do  it.  The  ministry  looks  to 
the  saving  of  other  souls,  not  to  the  all-round, 
wholesome  life  of  the  minister;  the  law  looks  to 
the  so-called  sacred  rights  of  property,  not  to  the 
sacred,  human  rights  of  the  lawyer;  education 
looks  to  the  process,  not  to  the  sturdy,  manly 
life  of  the  teacher ;  farming  looks  to  bread  and 
meat,  not  to  the  soundness  of  the  farmer  ;  manu- 
facturing has  its  eye  solely  on  the  output  and  the 
profit,  not  on  the  delight  of  the  worker  or  the 
salvation  of  the  profit-taker ;  and,  finally,  com- 
merce, more  shameless  than  the  rest,  has  pro- 
claimed with  the  utmost  frankness  that  business  is 
business,  and  that  its  votaries  are  not  in  it  for 
their  health,  but  for  profit. 

There  might  be  something  noble  in  this  sacri* 


62  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

fice  of  the  self  if  it  made  a  veritable  contribu- 
tion to  the  social  good,  but  that  is  impossible. 
The  social  good  is  not  an  abstract  happiness,  a 
fund  of  unexperienced  emotion.  It  is  the  sum  of 
individual  good  fortune.  Furthermore,  a  group 
willing  to  accept  the  sacrifice  of  one  of  its  mem- 
bers has  by  that  very  act  made  good  fortune  im- 
possible, for  it  has  robbed  itself  of  reverence  and 
sympathy.  It  is  true  that  the  opposite  doctrine  is 
commonly  preached.  Resignation,  renunciation, 
sacrifice,  contentment,  the  whole  catalogue  of  as- 
cetic abdications  are  urged  by  those  who  have  never 
caught  sight  of  the  splendor  of  life ;  but  it  is  a 
coward  doctrine,  and  has  in  it  no  element  of  the 
divine. 

The  problem  of  humanizing  life,  for  that  is  what 
translating  the  philosophic  idea  into  a  social  pur- 
pose means,  is  difficult  in  this,  that  it  involves  a 
turning  one's  back  upon  the  conventional  solutions. 
But  the  problem  is  easy  when  this  is  once  done. 
The  obstacles  to  a  complete,  sturdy,  wholesome  life 
are  not  material ;  they  are  mental.  They  are  to 
be  found  in  those  false  ideas  which  dominate  life 
like  so  many  post-hypnotic  suggestions.  The  con- 
flict is  to  be  fought  out  in  the  spirit.  It  is  there 
that  victories  are  lost  and  won. 

I  fancy  that  any  one  looking  upon  the  Europe 
of  the  Middle  Ages  would  have  said  that  the  most 
persistent  fact  was  the  feudal  strongholds  which 
were  then  the  seats  of  power.  But  the  ideas  which 
consented  to  that  order  of  things  failed.     To-day 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  63 

those  strongholds  are  in  ruins.  At  the  present  mo- 
ment, the  most  persistent  fact  in  the  outer  world 
is  apparently  the  large  cities,  and  those  who  have 
builded  them  look  to  their  indefinite  expansion. 
But  these  cities  rest  upon  the  idea  of  trade,  upon 
the  supremacy  of  the  market,  not  upon  the  idea  of 
human  perfectibility.  When  the  ideas  which  con- 
sent to  this  order  of  things  fail,  then  will  be  seen 
the  passing  of  the  city.  As  the  need  for  a  whole- 
some, complete  life  makes  itself  felt  in  the  human 
spirit,  the  idea  strengthens  and  the  obstacles  fade. 
I  say  this,  not  as  an  abstract  proposition,  but  as 
the  plain  experience  of  a  multitude  of  earnest  lives. 
One  must  work  with  one's  hands,  one  must  work 
with  one's  mind,  one  must  keep  a  hot  fire  in  the 
heart,  —  red  blood,  swift  thought,  warm  heart,  — 
these  are  the  content  of  the  social  purpose.  It  is 
organic  wealth,  and  of  such  wealth  there  is  enough 
for  all  men. 

Habit  is  a  great  tyrant.  The  most  of  us  are  so 
far  removed  from  the  all-round  life  of  bodily,  men- 
tal, and  emotional  activity,  that  it  presents  itself  to 
the  imagination  as  a  distinct  hardship.  Yet  a  life 
of  diversified  work  is  rewarded  by  greater  power 
all  along  the  line.  The  perspective  of  things  gets 
straightened  out.  One  will  not  slay  cattle  and 
sheep,  and,  red-handed,  prepare  them  for  one's  own 
table ;  one  will  not  arrange  a  many  course  dinner, 
and  then  sit  down  and  eat  it ;  one  will  not  build 
and  over-fumish  a  great  house,  and  then  tax  one's 
self  personally  with  its  care ;  one  will  not  elaborate 


64^  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

one's  own  wardrobe,  and  spend  one's  days  in  lann« 
dry  work  and  mending.  But  it  is  well  to  ask  prao« 
tical  questions,  Who  do  all  these  things  for  us? 
Does  it  contribute  to  their  well-being?  Does  it 
make  for  perfection  ? 

As  one's  imagination  plays  about  these  compli- 
cated tasks,  and  transfers  them  to  the  self,  they 
become  less  and  less  possible,  until  finally  they  are 
repudiated  for  others  as  they  would  be  for  the  self. 

The  way  out  is  very  open  and  clear.  It  is  the 
way  of  simple,  rational  living.  One  may  spread 
one's  own  table  with  bread  and  wine,  and  sit  down 
joyfully  to  the  feast.  One  may  care  for  one's  own 
simple  home,  and  take  delight  in  handling  objects 
of  real  beauty.  One  may  prepare  the  simple  dress 
which  best  becomes  a  beautiful  body.  These  sim- 
ple tasks  of  every-day  life  —  food  and  shelter  and 
clothing  —  may  be  made  to  minister  to  the  health 
of  the  body  and  to  the  delight  of  the  spirit.  When 
such  tasks  are  shared  with  those  one  loves,  with 
equal  members  of  one's  family,  not  with  servants 
and  hirelings,  the  delight  in  wholesome  bodily  ac- 
tion is  touched  with  the  heart  delight  of  dear 
comradeship.  Surely,  every  one  remembers  the 
unaffected  joy  with  which  Homer's  people,  king's 
sons  and  queen's  daughters,  shared  in  the  common 
toil  of  life,  and  how  truly  they  idealized  it. 

We  lose  immeasurably  by  making  these  daily 
home  tasks  complicated  and  hideous,  and  then  turn- 
ing them  over  to  a  class  of  people  whom,  by  the 
very  magnitude  of  the  tasks,  we  hold  remorselessly 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  65 

to  the  lower  life.  Many  who  are  warm  advocates 
of  an  eight-hour  day  keep  their  own  servants  busy 
for  almost  twice  that  length  of  time.  As  a  lover 
of  perfection,  one  may  not  consent  to  any  tasks 
which  cannot  be  idealized,  cannot  be  made  sources 
of  genuine  joy,  and  one  may  not  consent  to  them 
for  others  any  more  than  for  the  self. 

It  was  a  distinct  human  loss  when  we  turned  so 
much  of  our  work  over  to  machines  and  to  unin- 
terested wage-earners.  And  it  was  a  tremendous 
esthetic  loss.  We  are  coming  to  realize  the  poverty 
of  our  cheap  machine-made  goods,  our  chairs  and 
tables  and  carpets  and  wall-papers  and  the  rest. 
Middle-class  houses  are  absolutely  wearisome  in 
the  dull  uniformity  of  their  ugliness.  It  may  be 
that  Grand  Rapids  can  turn  out  train-loads  of  quar- 
tered oak  furniture  much  cheaper  than  you  and  I 
could,  but  that  is  not  the  whole  of  the  question. 
The  cheap  thing  gives  pleasure  but  once ;  this  is 
when  you  pay  the  bill.  It  exacts  compound  pay- 
ment every  time  it  enters  into  human  consciousness. 

One  would  not  for  a  moment  wish  to  lose  the 
immense  benefits  of  machinery.  But  one  would 
wish  to  withdraw  it  from  the  vulgar  service  of 
profit,  and  enter  it  once  for  all  in  the  distinguished 
service  of  human  esthetics.  One  would  especially 
wish  to  see  machinery  applied  in  the  performance 
of  those  daily  tasks  of  necessity,  the  preparation  of 
foods  and  fabrics,  and  withheld  from  all  those  more 
permanent  tasks  where  hand-work  confers  individ- 
uality and  beauty. 


eS'  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  unit  life,  striving  to  act  in  harmony  with  an 
esthetic  world-process,  demands  each  day  a  gener- 
ous amount  of  physical  exercise,  demands  a  sound, 
health-abounding  body,  and  keen,  well-trained 
senses.  One  half  of  the  working  day  is  not  too 
much  to  give  to  bodily  work.  If  you  give  less  you 
hardly  contribute  your  share  towards  the  common 
need,  and  you  fail  to  receive  your  share  of  that  vital 
quickening  which  comes  from  having  a  live  body. 

A  strong  man  cannot  tire  himself  mentally  by 
half  a  day's  work.  If  his  task  be  self-chosen  and 
well-chosen,  he  can  get  nothing  out  of  it  but  pure 
pleasure  and  human  profit.  He  will  do  his  best 
work.  The  brain-worker,  on  the  verge  of  nervous 
prostration,  pale,  bloodless,  cold,  does  nothing  quite 
worth  the  doing.  The  morbid,  insane,  degenerate 
things  are  done  by  these  people,  men  and  women 
of  sickly  life  and  coward  habit.  Art  work  can 
only  be  done  by  artists.  The  poet  who  prepared 
to  write  his  masterpiece  by  first  trying  to  make  his 
own  life  a  poem  is  the  man  who  has  best  defined 
poetry ;  for  poetry,  Milton  says,  is  simple,  sensu- 
ous, passionate.  And  as  poetry  is  the  highest  ex- 
pression of  our  humanity  in  art,  so  the  genuinely 
poetic  life  must  be  its  highest  expression  in  action. 
The  life  which  is  unaffectedly  simple,  which  is 
sensuous  in  the  rich,  pure  way  that  Milton  uses 
the  term,  which  is  touched  with  wholesome  human 
passion,  is  precisely  the  social  type  which  repre- 
sents the  translation  of  the  philosophic  idea  into 
practice. 


THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE  67 

The  bodily  life  becomes  fine,  the  mental  life 
becomes  fruitful,  just  in  proportion  as  they  are 
touched  with  sound  emotion.  It  is  the  wholesome 
human  passion  which  makes  the  simple,  sensuous 
life  beautiful.  It  is  the  absence  of  this  passion, 
this  energizing  play  of  emotion,  which  makes  work 
drudgery,  and  all  life  dull  and  stupid.  It  is  a 
crime  for  those  of  us  who  seek  the  perfect  life  to 
consent  to  any  occupation  which  does  not  engage 
our  love  and  interest.  Daily  life  is  thin  and  poor 
and  mechanical  when  it  is  untouched  with  emo- 
tion. It  seems  to  me  a  source  of  national  poverty 
that  so  many  of  our  people  should  work  without 
emotion  and  without  interest.  One  could  serve 
the  state  with  sincere  passion,  and  perhaps  our 
industrial  workers  will  some  time  have  that  op- 
portunity ;  but  one  can  bring  no  passion  into  the 
service  of  the  individual  or  corporate  profit-taker. 
To  one  enamored  of  the  perfect  life,  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  accept  hire  and  to  put  into  the  hands  of 
another  anything  so  altogether  precious  as  one's 
own  time  and  power.  One  must  be  the  master  of 
these,  or  one  is  no  longer  a  man.  As  Wagner  ex- 
presses it,  "  Without  a  strong,  inner  necessity, 
nothing  true  or  genuine  can  ever  come  to  pass." 

The  transcendental  elements  in  the  philosophic 
idea  do  not  change  the  quality  of  the  social  pur- 
pose, but,  by  adding  to  its  sentiment,  add  a  tre- 
mendous emphasis  to  its  intensity  and  power. 
And  this  is  precisely  what  one  would  expect.  The 
immediate  elements,  as  we  have  seen,  spring  di- 


68  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

rectly  out  of  the  experience  of  the  moment.  The 
transcendental  elements  rest  upon  the  same  expe- 
rience by  the  projection  of  the  unfailing  reason- 
ableness of  all  this  experience  into  the  less  imme- 
diate territory  of  the  inner  life.  Consequently 
the  transcendental  elements  simply  heighten  the 
impulses  of  the  daily  life.  If  a  man  believe  him- 
self to  be  immortal ;  if  he  feel,  however  remotely, 
that  he  may  claim  kinship  with  the  hosts  of  heaven  ; 
if  he  realizes,  in  this  conception  of  the  Perfect 
One,  the  promise  of  an  infinite  progressiveness, 
there  must  come  to  him  a  consciousness  of  his  own 
high  destiny  so  vivid  and  so  compelling  that  he 
will  instinctively  reject  the  meaner  and  shabbier 
plans  of  life,  —  the  shop-keeping  and  sharp  bar- 
gaining, the  speculating  and  the  pettifogging,  the 
trifling  and  idling,  the  oppressing  and  exploiting, 
—  and  will,  as  a  man  should,  with  all  the  force 
that  is  in  him,  devote  himself  to  the  study  and 
pursuit  of  that  perfection  which  is  the  true  goal  of 
the  humanized  life. 


CHAPTER  in 

THE   SOURCE  OP  POWER 

The  educational  process  by  which  the  social 
purpose,  the  splendor  of  life,  is  realized,  is  an  inner 
process,  a  changed  way  of  looking  at  life,  a  redemp- 
tion, and  must  be  brought  about  not  by  any  outer 
pressure,  but  by  the  growth  and  outreaching  of 
the  spirit  itself.  Compulsory  training  is  a  possible 
process.  Compulsory  education  is  utterly  impos- 
sible, as  impossible  as  any  other  form  of  salvation 
by  compulsion.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  may  not 
be  taken  by  violence.  If  education  is  to  be  a 
practical  process,  is  to  succeed,  it  must  act  through 
the  channels  of  the  inner  life,  and  must  reach  the 
mainspring  of  human  action,  the  very  source  of 
power.  This  is  in  reality  the  most  important  of 
the  many  details  which  must  be  met  by  the  edu- 
cator when  he  comes  to  turn  his  predetermined 
social  purpose  into  a  daily  process. 

I  propose,  therefore,  to  devote  this  chapter  to  an 
inquiry  into  the  sources  of  conduct,  developing 
some  of  the  suggestions  contained  in  the  last  chap- 
ter. Such  an  inquiry  has  a  value  quite  aside  from 
its  educational  importance,  for  human  motives  enter 
into  all  of  the  daily  concerns  of  life  and  determine 
the  validity  and  timeliness  of  aU  of  our  art-forms. 


TO  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  study  of  mental  processes  is  a  current  in- 
terest not  at  all  confined  to  professed  psycholo- 
gists. Life  is  made  up  of  kaleidoscopic  human 
relations,  and  every  successful  man,  whether  along 
the  lower  walks  of  the  market  or  the  higher  walks 
of  human  enterprise,  has  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously adjusted  his  task  to  the  working  of  these 
processes.  This  popular  interest  in  mind  study 
satisfies  itself  at  first  with  a  mere  search  for  what  is 
curious  and  diverting,  and  even  here  the  harvest  is 
so  great  that  one  wonders  it  should  have  so  long 
awaited  the  gathering.  At  present  we  are  all 
familiar  with  the  more  striking  of  these  results. 
We  have  had  our  attention  called  to  the  curious 
connection  between  the  counting  process  and  an 
individual  number  form  ;  to  the  devices  by  which 
we  remember  dates  and  sequences ;  to  the  subtle 
connection  between  color  and  musical  sounds ;  to 
the  association  between  personality  and  colors ;  to 
the  imagery  which  odors  offer ;  and  to  the  hundred 
and  one  parallels  by  which  we  carry  on  the  pro- 
cesses of  thought.  We  have  read  Galton,  and 
have  learned  —  perhaps  to  our  surprise,  perhaps 
in  confirmation  of  our  own  painful  experience  — 
that  few  men  can  very  clearly  bring  up  the  face  of 
their  mother,  or  indeed  of  any  one  whom  they  have 
loved  very  deeply.  Memory  supplies  such  a  mul- 
titude of  pictures  that  we  are  not  able  to  compose 
them  into  one  face,  and  the  image  is  blurred. 
Casual  acquaintances,  people  to  whom  we  are 
quite  indifferent,  march  through  the  picture  gal- 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  71 

lery  of  the  mind  with  a  distinctness  which  f airlj 
mocks  the  longed-for  shadow  faces.  This  might 
be  developed  into  a  method  by  which  the  doubtful 
lover  could  distinguish  between  love  and  fancy. 
Other  curious  instances  fall  under  one's  own  obser- 
vation. Thus,  one  man  reports  that  the  diagram 
by  which  he  succeeded  in  keeping  the  Lord's 
Prayer  in  a  very  youthful  memory  was  in  reality 
the  path  of  progress  from  the  trundle-bed  in  the 
nursery  to  the  haven  of  the  mother's  room :  her 
pillow  and  "  Amen  "  always  fell  together.  Again, 
it  chanced  one  day  in  turning  over  an  old  atlas  that 
he  came  to  a  very  dreadful  picture  of  the  Aztecs 
offering  up  human  sacrifices.  He  hurried  on  and 
soon  forgot  the  matter,  but  when  he  tried  to  go  to 
sleep  that  night  the  picture  came  back  in  all  its 
dreadfulness,  and  with  it  an  overwhelming  sense 
of  the  cruelty  of  the  world.  He  was  conscious  of 
an  appalling,  unendurable  blackness,  a  blackness 
which  he  could  only  overcome  by  bringing  into  his 
mental  field  of  vision  a  flood  of  golden  light.  This 
flood  crept  out  of  the  northwest,  advanced,  wavered, 
retreated,  and  then,  with  one  magnificent  sweep, 
devoured  the  blackness,  and  he  was  able  to  go  to 
sleep.  Others  report  that  they  picture  the  weeks 
as  a  series  of  recurrent  waves,  and  it  is  quite  com- 
mon to  distinguish  the  days  of  the  week  by  differ- 
ences of  color  or  texture.  It  is  also  a  common 
experience  that  certain  writers  are  not  readable 
because  their  sentences  fail  to  produce  distinct 
visual  images. 


72  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

Many  of  these  results  have  no  particular  impor- 
tance in  the  intellectual  life,  except  perhaps  to  stim- 
ulate a  deeper  interest.  Idle  curiosity  gives  place 
in  turn  to  a  genuine  concern  to  get  at  the  heart 
of  the  connection  between  thought  and  action,  and 
so  discover  the  motive  power  of  the  human  drama. 
One  best  proceeds  by  scrutinizing  human  perform- 
ance in  general. 

One  cannot  be  in  the  world  any  great  length  of 
time  without  coming  to  distinguish  in  a  broad  way 
between  two  classes  of  people,  those  who  are  alive 
and  those  who  are  not,  the  live  souls  and  the  dead 
souls.  The  live  souls  are  the  people  of  power,  the 
people  who  are  and  who  do.  The  dead  souls  are 
the  people  of  weakness,  the  apathetic  mortals  who 
are  nothing  and  who  do  nothing.  The  difference 
is  very  real,  the  difference  between  red  blood  and 
yellow.  There  are  all  shades  and  degrees  between 
the  people  of  power  and  the  people  of  weakness, 
but  the  extreme  types  are  sufficient  to  point  the 
lesson. 

On  the  whole,  even  an  optimist  must  be  op- 
pressed by  the  realization  that  among  children 
there  are  many  live  souls,  among  older  people  many 
dead  souls.  In  the  little  ones,  there  is  still  unity, 
the  sound,  healthy  body,  the  unencumbered  mind, 
the  unrepulsed  heart.  Their  instincts  are  primi- 
tive and  simple.  What  they  want,  they  want  very 
much.  They  take  direct  means,  for  their  interests 
are  very  real.  These  qualities  make  childhood  very 
lovable  and  very  sacred.     The  death  of  a  beautiful 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  73 

child  is  a  public  calamity ;  the  earth  for  the  mo- 
ment is  less  fair.  This  reality  and  aliveness,  this 
human  personal  power,  make  the  comradeship  of 
children  delightful.  They  live  in  an  atmosphere 
which  silently  reproves  the  less  wholesome  atmo- 
sphere of  the  adult  world.  One  notices  that  the 
most  beautiful  men  and  women  are  the  happiest 
when  they  are  with  children ;  that  they  seek  them 
out,  and  that  they  are  forever  manifesting  their  af- 
finity by  an  equal  simplicity  and  directness.  That 
was  a  very  penetrating  observation,  —  "  Except  ye 
become  as  little  children."  The  kingdom  is  not  one 
of  profit  and  overwork  and  nervous  worry  and  com- 
petition and  human  slavery ;  not  a  world  of  blood- 
less bodies  and  narrow  minds  and  cold  hearts.  It 
is  the  kingdom  of  participation  and  delight,  the 
kingdom  of  the  radiant  life.  And  into  this  fair 
kingdom  only  the  little  ones  may  come,  and  those 
who  are  like  the  little  ones  in  simplicity  and  sin- 
cerity. 

In  what,  must  we  believe,  does  this  power  consist  ? 
If  we  go  straight  from  the  child's  world  of  the 
kingdom  into  the  adult  world,  we  perceive  a  great 
contrast,  and  it  manifests  itself  on  all  sides.  If  we 
stand  at  the  door  of  the  church,  and  watch  the  men 
and  women  going  In  and  coming  out,  how  many  of 
them  are  saved?  If  we  walk  the  length  of  the 
street  and  peer  into  the  faces  of  the  passers-by,  how 
many  of  them  are  alive  ?  If  we  go  into  the  mar- 
kets among  the  employed  ones,  and  regard  their 
carriage,  and  the  clothes  they  wear,  and  their  habit 


74  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

of  speech  and  thought,  how  deeply  are  we  com- 
forted? If  we  pass  in  and  pass  out  among  the 
workers,  among  the  men  and  among  the  women, 
and  inquire  into  the  secret  of  their  lives,  how  many 
of  them  are  free  ?  If  we  go  among  the  professed 
teachers,  the  clergy  and  the  schoolmasters,  how 
many  of  them  are  sources  of  light  ?  In  this  older 
world,  one  finds  the  touch  of  death  and  of  ill-con- 
cealed endurance.  One  finds  the  apathetic  doing 
of  distasteful  tasks,  the  false  activity  of  dead  souls, 
the  absence  of  glorious  and  radiant  life.  It  is  useless 
to  point  to  their  works,  to  the  churches  they  have 
reared,  to  the  houses  they  have  builded,  to  the  shops 
they  have  cluttered.  It  avails  nothing  that  their 
office  structures  are  very  high  and  their  bridges 
very  long  and  their  factories  very  big  and  their 
mines  very  deep.  It  is  not  impressive,  the  speed 
with  which  they  come  and  go  on  their  unworthy 
errands.  It  is  no  great  matter  that  they  can  call 
the  price  of  pork  from  New  York  to  Chicago,  and 
that  soon  the  same  unimportant  news  may  be 
shouted  all  the  way  to  San  Francisco.  None  of  these 
things  are  in  themselves  admirable.  They  bear  the 
present  stamp  of  a  deficient  humanity,  for  they  are 
prompted  by  individual  profit  and  not  by  the  social 
good.  They  are  not  the  source  of  power,  not  even 
the  evidence  of  power. 

In  what,  must  we  believe,  does  this  human  weak- 
ness consist  ? 

It  may  be  that  we  are  setting  too  high  a  standard, 
that  it  is  too  much  to  ask  that  the  world  shall  in 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  75 

all  of  its  aspects  be  beautiful  and  fine.  I  do  not 
myself  believe  this.  But  perhaps  if  we  turn  to  the 
gentler  side  of  life,  to  social  intercourse  and  arts 
and  letters,  to  human  performance  generally  on  its 
less  commercial  side,  we  shall  find  the  power  which 
is  lacking  in  the  adult  world  of  the  market.  And 
this  in  part  turns  out  to  be  true.  In  every  com- 
munity there  are  groups  of  earnest  people,  beauti- 
ful men  and  beautiful  women,  meeting  together  for 
noble  purposes,  saying  the  thing  that  is  sound  and 
true,  doing  the  thing  that  is  generous  and  fine.  There 
are  pictures  painted,  so  full  of  emotion  that  one 
feels  one's  own  pulse-beat  quicken  in  looking  at 
them ;  there  are  houses  builded  which  breathe  the 
very  spirit  of  the  home ;  there  are  poems  and  es- 
says and  stories  which  report  truly  the  inner  life 
and  its  aspirations ;  there  is  much  being  done  ade- 
quate in  every  way  to  keep  alive  in  the  heart  the 
sentiment  of  gratitude  and  hope. 

And  yet,  even  on  this  professedly  human  side  of 
life,  one  feels  the  chill  of  dead  souls,  the  absence 
of  the  radiant  life.  It  is  a  world  too  full  of  heart- 
burn and  disappointment  and  juiceless  function,  too 
deficient  in  disinterested  human  service.  Social 
pleasure  is  transformed  into  social  duty.  Social 
usage  has  its  phrase-book  of  polite  lies  which  pass 
current  among  apparently  good  people.  And  so, 
too,  the  high  purpose  of  art  and  letters  and  music 
makes  failure  along  these  lines  the  more  appalling. 
T\iere  is  surely  something  significant  that  our  art 
is  so  largely  exotic,  that  our  students  of  design  are 


78  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

C5opying  Japanese  prints,  that  our  houses  are  filled 
with  reproductions  of  the  old  masters,  that  our 
architecture  is  never  of  the  period,  but  always  of 
the  past,  that  our  few  old  buildings  have  a  beauty 
unapproached  by  all  the  lavishment  of  a  rich  man's 
palace,  that  music  speaks  to  our  hearts  of  a  far 
distant  world,  that  the  most  glorious  poetry  is 
never  thought  of  as  a  picture  of  the  actual.  Surely 
there  is  some  grave  reason  for  all  this  failure  in 
present  living,  all  this  banishment  of  the  beautiful 
dreams  of  the  human  spirit  to  a  region  of  unreality. 
Why  is  it  that  we  have  so  much  partial  death,  so 
little  of  the  full  and  radiant  life  ? 

These  are  hard  questions,  ungracious  questions, 
some  of  them,  but  if  we  could  answer  them,  we 
should  be  on  the  road  to  making  this  a  surpass- 
ingly fair  world,  for  knowing  the  source  of  power 
we  could  command  power.  In  education,  the  reali- 
zation of  the  source  of  power  is  the  beginning  of 
7^        wisdom. 

The  answer  is  near  at  hand.  The  source  of  power 
is  in  human  emotion,  in  human  desire,  in  the  hu- 
man heart.  The  children  of  men  get  what  they  work 
for,  and  in  just  the  measure  that  they  work  for  it, 
just  the  measure  of  their  desire.  The  source  of 
weakness  is  the  absence  of  human  sentiment  and 
emotion,  the  absence  of  the  inner  necessity. 

Psychology,  history,  poetry,  art,  the  events  of 
the  moment,  all  unite  in  testifying  that  this  is 
the  true  answer.  Human  power  is  not  a  thing 
of  the  market,  a  thing  to  be  bought  and  sold.     It 


I 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  77 

is  not  a  product  to  be  manufactured  by  any  me- 
chanical process.  It  is  a  growth ;  it  is  something 
organic. 

The  modem  human  sciences  lay  tremendous 
stress  upon  the  health  of  the  body.  As  the  organ- 
ism in  which  the  world-drama  is  to  be  played  out, 
it  must  be  adequate  to  its  high  purposes.  And 
further,  if  the  drama  is  to  be  a  magnificent  one, 
the  motive  power  back  of  it  all,  the  emotional  im- 
pulse, must  be  strong  and  compelling.  The  ma- 
chinery of  human  action  is  found  to  be  startlingly 
direct.  What  we  want  to  do,  we  do  or  try  to  do. 
What  we  do  not  want  to  do,  we  neither  do  nor 
have  the  power  of  doing.  One  cannot  too  much 
insist  upon  it,  that  just  this  seemingly  baffling 
and  capricious  thing,  human  desire,  is  the  main- 
spring of  all  human  action.  It  must  be  enlisted 
in  all  our  enterprises,  for  otherwise  our  enter- 
prises fail. 

This  all  becomes  very  clear  when  we  regard 
what  the  world  is  at  any  moment  doing.  It  is 
true  that  vast  numbers  of  people  seem  to  be  doing 
what  they  do  not  want  to  do,  and  multitudes  of 
them  complainingly  say  so.  But  it  is  impossible. 
Under  any  given  set  of  circumstances,  the  thing 
that  we  do  is  the  thing  that  we  elect  to  do.  Other- 
wise the  muscular  system  would  fail  to  act,  for  the 
motor  nerves  would  bring  no  command.  Even 
from  a  materialistic  point  of  view,  the  world-drama 
is  first  rehearsed  in  thought,  and  subsequent  his- 
tory is  but  the  projection  of  thought  into  action. 


78-  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

And  the  prompter  is  the  human  heart,  is  human 
desire.  We  may  regret  the  given  set  of  circum- 
stances ;  regret  the  narrow  range  of  possible  alter- 
natives ;  we  may  wish  with  all  our  soul  that 
circumstances  were  different ;  but  this  must  not 
blind  us  to  the  fact  that  things  being  as  they  are, 
we  all  do  the  thing  that  is  least  distasteful  to  us, 
that  is,  the  thing  that  we  want  to  do.  By  offering 
bitter  alternatives,  we  can  force  men  to  do  bitter 
things :  Socrates  voluntarily  drinks  the  hemlock. 

There  are  two  ways,  then,  of  influencing  human 
conduct.  One  is  to  offer  limited  alternatives,  of 
which  the  least  distasteful  offers  just  enough  hap- 
piness-producing quality  to  set  it  into  motion.  But 
compulsion  of  this  sort  leads  to  no  good  result. 
It  is  the  method  of  absolutism.  Educational  and 
social  work  must  proceed  by  the  second  path,  not 
by  narrowing  the  possibilities  and  so  forcing  re- 
sults, but  by  offering  a  free  field  and  then  enlisting 
desire  on  the  side  that  experience  has  shown  to  be 
the  best.  To  be  psychological  in  the  treatment  of 
social  problems,  we  must  set  ourselves  to  bring 
about  the  good  sentiment,  and  then  the  good  act 
will  follow.  It  is  the  method  of  true  democracy. 
The  less  patient  way  is  to  force  the  good  act,  but 
this  sort  of  virtue  requires  the  policeman. 

So  important  in  education  is  this  principle  of 
voluntary  action  in  a  free  field  ;  of  choice  of  that 
alternative  which  is  truly  the  richest  in  happiness, 
that  it  deserves  the  emphasis  of  repeated  statement 
and  illustration.     Observe,  for  example,  the  pro* 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  79 

cess  when  you  make  children  go  through  the  opera- 
tion commonly  described  as  doing  what  they  do  not 
want  to  do.  It  may  be  that  the  act  is  an  unwel- 
come lesson.  This  is  what  happens,  —  some  ex- 
terior motive  is  substituted.  It  may  be  the  desire 
to  please  you  ;  it  may  be  the  fear  of  some  punish- 
ment, perhaps  the  withdrawal  of  your  esteem  or 
perhaps  the  infliction  of  a  more  direct  penalty. 
What  the  children  really  want  in  such  a  case  is 
not  to  do  the  lesson,  but  to  avoid  the  undesired 
result  of  appearing  not  to  do  it;  and  this  latter 
motive  being  the  stronger,  they  do  the  lesson  after 
a  fashion,  do  it  just  well  enough  to  avoid  the 
penalty  of  not  doing  it.  And  they  have  their 
reward.  But  meanwhile,  they  have  lost  in  direct- 
ness, in  sincerity,  and  in  power.  And  you,  who 
have  forced  the  issue  in  this  unscientific  way,  you, 
it  seems  to  me,  have  been  a  blind  leader  of  the 
blind.  This  thwarting  of  the  real  desire,  s^d  the 
substituting  of  another  less  natural  and  less  gen- 
uine desire,  means  in  the  end  a  deadening  of  the 
sentiment  and  a  mechanicalizing  of  the  whole  pro- 
cess of  life.  It  is  the  early  stage  in  the  produc- 
tion of  dead  souls. 

Observe,  too,  the  process  when,  through  either 
military  or  industrial  absolutism,  you  make  men 
and  women  go  through  the  operation  commonly 
described  as  doing  what  they  do  not  want  to  do. 
The  results  are  even  more  tragic  than  with  chil- 
dren, for  the  material  is  less  flexible,  and  when 
once  bent  down  by  expediency,  seldom  assumes 


aO  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

again  the  upright  position.  It  is  surely  quite  safe 
to  say  that  more  than  one  half  our  workers  are 
doing  things  which  they  say  they  do  not  want  to  do. 
But  they  do  want  the  money,  they  do  want  the 
wage  which  comes  from  the  doing  of  the  distasteful 
task ;  and  driven  by  cold  and  hunger  and  nakedness, 
driven,  above  all,  by  the  absence  of  a  redeeming 
idea,  they  do  want  the  wage  more  than  they  want 
to  omit  the  work.  What  is  the  result  ?  The  re- 
sult is  that  they  want  to  give  just  so  much  work  as 
will  insure  the  getting  of  the  wage  and  will  avoid 
dangerous  criticism,  and  that  is  all.  And  this  is 
what  they  do,  and  such  work  is  the  work  that  we 
see.  Worse  still,  there  is  no  joy  and  delight  in  the 
doing.  It  is  a  tragedy  that  by  thus  trampling  on 
the  very  condition  of  joyous  work,  work  is  quite 
robbed  of  its  immense  happiness-producing  power. 
In  reality,  work  is  one  of  the  things  to  thank  the 
gods  for.  Every  artist  knows  that.  It  is  mourn- 
ful that  the  ideal  of  the  majority  of  our  present 
workers  should  be  the  man  of  leisure  rather  than 
the  more  perfect  artist.  But  it  will  be  so  until 
work  is  humanized  by  the  touch  of  genuine  senti- 
ment, and  so  made  one  of  the  highest  of  human  joys. 
It  was  the  presence  of  this  sentiment  which  made 
the  old,  loving  hand-work  so  superior  to  the  best 
of  our  uniform  machine-made  goods,  a  superiority 
which  we  tacitly  acknowledge  when  we  imitate  the 
very  imperfections  of  the  hand-work  in  our  attempt 
to  bring  back  something  of  the  old  feeling.  It 
was  this  sentiment  which  constituted  the  superi- 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  81 

ority  of  the  artist-artisans  who  fashioned  mediaeval 
Europe  into  a  very  treasure-house  of  art. 

The  formula  of  that  much-quoted  English  painter 
who  reported  that  he  mixed  his  colors  with  brains 
can  be  still  further  improved  upon.  The  master- 
painters  of  the  world  have  put  something  even 
more  essential  into  their  colors,  —  they  have  put 
their  hearts.  And  this  has  been  the  wonder-work- 
ing ingredient  which  has  gone  into  all  the  master- 
pieces of  the  centuries. 

The  bribe  of  gold  does  not  produce  art  or  litera- 
ture or  music  or  architecture.  If  it  could,  think 
what  prodigious  achievements  we  should  be  find- 
ing in  New  York  and  Chicago  and  San  Francisco. 
Think  how  these  very  rich  cities  would  vie  with 
one  another  as  the  birthplace  of  the  muses.  But 
the  muses  are  not  born  there.  What  we  find  is 
simply  a  market  for  the  things  reputed  to  be  fine, 
a  generous  market,  but  not  a  source. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  it  was  the  same  at 
Rome.  When  that  tremendous  art  impulse  swept 
over  Italy  which  succeeding  generations  have  known 
and  studied  under  the  name  of  the  Kenaissance, 
Rome  alone  was  barren  and  unproductive.  She 
was  a  centre  of  political  and  ecclesiastical  power, 
but  not  a  source  of  genuine  human  achievement. 
The  sources  were  elsewhere,  in  Tuscany  and  Lom- 
bardy  and  Venetia,  places  which  made  it  possible 
for  the  human  spirit  to  be  the  prompter  of  human 
art-work.  Rome  was  a  charnel  house,  the  home 
of  the  most  impious  of  all  iniquity,  —  the  iniquity 


8S  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

which  masquerades  under  the  name  of  religion. 
She  half  coaxed,  half  forced  the  masters  into  her 
service,  Michelangelo  and  Raffaelle  and  others  of 
the  great  ones,  but  she  did  not  herself  produce  a 
single  artist  of  the  first  rank. 

Let  us  never  grow  tired  of  repeating  that  good 
and  great  things  are  only  born  of  a  good  and  great 
spirit.  They  do  not  present  themselves  as  supply 
to  the  beckoning  hand  of  demand. 

In  speaking  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  getting 
art  work  out  of  men  devoid  of  the  joyous  art  spirit, 
William  Morris  makes  this  comment :  "  At  the 
risk  of  being  accused  of  sentimentality,  I  will  say 
that  since  this  is  so,  since  the  work  which  produces 
the  things  which  should  be  matters  of  art  is  but  a 
burden  and  a  slavery,  I  exult  in  this  at  least,  that 
it  cannot  produce  art,  that  all  it  can  do  lies  between 
stark  utilitarianism  and  idiotic  sham."  These  are 
the  words,  not  of  a  closet  philosopher,  but  of  a 
working  artist,  a  man  of  affairs. 

The  poverty  of  our  own  national  performance,  — 
and  this  performance  is  singularly  poor  when  you 
consider  that  there  are  seventy  millions  of  us  at 
work,  —  this  poverty  is  due  to  the  absence  of  the 
higher  motive  power,  to  the  absence  of  genuine 
feeling,  the  deep  human  sentiment  which  makes 
great  things  possible.  If  you  stifle  affection,  if 
you  disregard  family  ties,  if  you  outrage  personal 
inclination,  if'you  neglect  social  fellowship,  what  is 
left  of  the  inner  life,  of  that  superb  motive  power 
which  keeps   a  man  going?    It  is  true  that  he 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  83 

plods  along,  but  then  the  animals  do  that,  and  there 
is  little  credit  in  mere  self-preservation.  A  life 
without  positive  good  in  it  might  as  well  not  be. 

This  suppression  of  sentiment,  this  closing  one's 
eyes  to  things  which  one  ought  not  to  close  one's 
eyes  to,  is  to  awake  some  gray  day  to  the  ennui 
of  advancing  years,  and  to  wonder  after  all  whether 
the  game  is  worth  the  candle.  It  is  a  very  real 
tragedy.  One  may  not  view  it  as  a  spectator  at  the 
play,  for  it  is  not  representation,  —  it  is  reality. 

We  need  not  grow  tired  of  repeating,  and  it  will 
be  a  long  time  before  America  may  profitably  grow 
tired  of  hearing,  that  the  motive  power  of  great 
achievement  lies  in  the  human  heart  and  not  in  any 
form  of  enlightened  selfishness  of  the  acquisitive 
sort.  The  optimism  which  leads  us  to  believe  un- 
falteringly in  the  final  outcome  must  not  blind  us 
to  the  present.  Matthew  Arnold  quotes  with  large 
effect  how  the  early  crusaders  were  met  at  the  end 
of  each  weary  day's  march  by  the  eager  clamor  of 
the  children :  "  Are  we  there  ?  Is  this  Jerusalem  ?  " 
And  each  night  the  spent  crusaders  answered 
wearily :  "  Jerusalem  is  not  yet.  Jerusalem  is  not 
yet."  We  must  not  deceive  ourselves.  The  bright 
pictures  painted  by  demagogues,  all  sticky  as  these 
pictures  are  with  milk  and  honey,  are  not  yet  true. 
Because  our  working  people  are  not  starving  ;  be- 
cause our  middle  classes  have  the  smart  look  which 
comes  about  from  living  in  a  flat  and  being  fitted 
out  in  a  department  store  ;  because  our  rich  people 
are  squandering  millions,  it  does  not  follow  that  we 


84  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

are  civilized  or  socialized.  Jerusalem  is  not  yet. 
The  task  remains,  —  the  task  of  humanizing  and 
socializing  the  national  life  by  importing  into  it 
the  red  blood,  the  warm  touch,  the  social  concern  of 
a  loving  sentiment.  It  makes  a  tremendous  differ- 
ence what  a  man  thinks  about  as  he  works,  what 
he  believes,  what  he  feels.  It  makes  a  tremendous 
difference  whether  he  is  a  free  man,  expressing  his 
own  full,  rich,  joyous  life  in  his  work,  or  whether 
he  is  a  hireling  with  no  satisfied  emotion  to  ex- 
press. 

Human  action  is  the  expression  not  alone  of  the 
passing  emotion  of  the  moment,  but  as  well  of  the 
cumulative  emotion  of  a  lifetime,  of  several  life- 
times. We  know  that  fine  phrase,  —  the  instincts 
of  a  gentleman, — and  all  that  we  gather  into  it, 
the  noble  action  made  sure  by  the  striving  of  years, 
perhaps  of  generations,  made  sure,  however  sudden 
and  overwhelming  the  demand.  We  know  what  a 
real  thing  it  is,  how  it  sums  up  in  one  instant,  with- 
out hesitation  or  argument,  all  the  efforts  after 
perfection  which  we  have  affirmed  to  be  the  abid- 
ing impulse  of  the  human  spirit.  And  those  who 
behold  the  operation  of  these  beautiful  instincts 
marvel,  it  may  be,  and  regard  them  as  something 
uncaused,  the  miracle  of  perfect  breeding. 

In  the  practical  process  of  education,  a  process 
quite  without  meaning  except  as  it  carries  out  the 
social  purpose,  we  can  make  no  progress  unless  we 
build  our  work  persistently  on  the  admitted  source 
of  power.     It  is   observable  everywhere   that  we 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  83 

have  a  great  number  of  useless  learned  persons, 
and  their  defect  seems  to  be  a  failure  of  motive 
power.  Half  the  equipment,  with  twice  the  hu- 
man spirit  back  of  it,  woidd  have  rendered  much 
the  greater  service.  It  is  on  this  very  ground  that 
our  current  schemes  of  education  and  society  are 
open  to  most  serious  criticism.  We  are  multiply- 
ing opportunities,  multiplying  the  tools  of  achieve- 
ment, creating  a  vast  accumulation  of  intellectual 
machinery,  and  then  we  make  it  ineffective  by  pro- 
viding insufficient  motive  power,  —  insufficient  or- 
ganism and  insufficient  impulse.  But  if  we  really 
believed  that  the  source  of  human  power  is  to  be 
found  in  the  emotions,  the  very  opposite  course 
would  be  the  one  which  we  were  bound  to  follow. 
Our  first  concern  ought  to  be  with  the  emotional 
life, 

Our  progress  even  in  educational  matters  has 
been  mechanical  rather  than  human.  What  we 
are  constantly  asked  to  admire  is  the  machinery 
of  instruction,  the  buildings,  the  laboratories,  the 
courses  of  study,  the  learning  of  the  teaching  staff. 
We  are  prone  to  explain  the  fact  that  so  many 
children  pass  through  this  admirable  machine  quite 
untouched  by  anything  so  deep  as  an  educational 
process,  quite  devoid  of  even  the  rudiments  of  cul- 
ture, on  the  ground  that  there  is  some  fault  on  the 
part  of  the  children,  just  as  if  the  problem  of  edu- 
cation were  not  to  deal  with  children  as  they  are, 
rather  than  with  theoretical  children. 

From  this  point  of  view  of  the  source  of  power. 


86  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  desires  and  interests  of  childhood  are  very 
sacred  possessions,  strongholds  to  be  guarded,  de- 
fended, and  energized.  It  is  of  far  graver  impor- 
tance that  children  should  live  sincerely,  that  they 
should  put  joy  and  heart  into  their  occupations, 
that  they  should  do  well  the  thing  which  they 
want  to  do,  than  that  they  should  satisfy  any  peda- 
gogical plan  of  older  people's  devising.  To  carry 
out  such  a  culture  requires  tremendous  finesse,  the 
finesse  of  knowing  when  to  let  people  alone.  It  is 
difiicult  enough  not  to  interfere  with  grown  people ; 
almost  impossible  to  keep  meddling  hands  off  the 
children.  It  is  the  record  of  so  many  men  and 
women  that  they  lived  a  dual  life  in  childhood,  an 
\y  outer  life  of  conformity  and  expediency,  an  inner, 
secret  life  of  charming  fancy  and  naive  supposition. 
In  some  cases,  when  the  pressure  was  too  great, 
the  spontaneous,  self-prompted  life  gave  way  alto- 
gether, and  there  remained  only  a  cripple,  moving 
through  the  rest  of  life  on  the  crutches  of  outer 
suggestion.  In  other  cases,  where  a  better  fortune 
diminished  the  amount  of  conformity  demanded, 
the  inner  life  had  a  fair  field  for  its  development, 
and  in  wonder  we  name  talent  or  genius  what  is 
only  nature.  The  people  of  power  are  the  people 
who  have  heard  and  followed  the  inner  voice,  who 
have  had  sufficient  strength  of  character  to  resist 
temptation,  when  temptation  came  in  the  guise  of 
interference. 

This  explains,  I  think,  why  it  is  that  so  many  of 
the  people  in  whom  the  world  is  most  deeply  inter- 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  87 

ested  have  come  from  the  great  open  of  life,  rather 
than  from  the  schools.  The  biography  of  genius, 
even  the  biography  of  talent,  shows  a  surprising 
percentage  who  have  eluded  the  schoolmaster,  and 
have  come  out  winners.  It  is  no  argument  against 
school-keeping,  but  a  very  forcible  one  against  ill- 
advised  school-keeping. 

Children  differ  not  so  much  in  natural  endow- 
ment, great  as  are  these  differences,  as  they  do  in 
will  power.  The  real  work  of  education  ought  to 
be  the  cultivation  of  the  will  to  do,  rather  than  the 
setting  of  tasks  which  would  be  helpful  if  the  will 
were  there,  but  which,  in  its  absence,  are  quite  mean- 
ingless or  even  harmful.  In  the  vocabulary  of 
school  life  we  call  this  force  "  interest,"  but  it  is  bet- 
ter to  name  it  "  feeling,"  for  the  term  is  less  peda- 
gogical, and  it  does  emphasize  what  we  want  for- 
ever to  be  emphasizing,  that  even  formal  education 
is  a  theatre  for  the  play  of  the  same  great  forces 
which  make  up  the  outer  world-life,  and  that  it  is 
a  true  process,  just  in  proportion  as  it  has  this  uni- 
versality. The  apathy,  the  anesthesia,  which  comes 
when  feeling  is  faint  and  interest  wanting,  is  the 
stone  wall  against  which  so  many  human  move- 
ments dash  and  break.  We  can  only  hope  for 
success  when  the  motor  part  of  our  adventure  is 
provided  for. 

This  more  psychological  method  is  quite  at  vari- 
ance with  the  educational  ideas  of  an  older  genera- 
tion, and  is  even  now  somewhat  of  a  shock  to  those 
assured  persons  who  believe  that  the  first  proper 


88  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

work  of  the  school  or  of  the  sober-minded  parent 
is  to  break  the  child's  will.  This  is  a  process,  by 
the  way,  which  involves  a  dangerous  strengthening 
of  the  adult  will,  but  apparently  this  side  of  the 
matter  has  been  forgotten. 

In  an  old  book,  published  about  1748, 1  recently 
found  this  searching  question  :  "  To  what  sins  are 
children  especially  prone  ?  "  And  the  answer,  done 
in  awe-inspiring  capital  letters,  was  this  mild  re- 
sume of  juvenile  depravity :  "To  Ungodliness,  Pro- 
faneness,  and  Self-sufficiency."  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  I  found  this  book  in  Connecticut.  Our 
average  child  may  surely  be  cleared  from  the  first 
and  the  second  of  these  charges,  while  the  last 
charge,  self-sufficiency,  is,  when  wisely  directed, 
the  very  source  of  power.  The  old  text  about 
bringing  up  a  child  in  the  way  he  should  go  was 
twisted  into  the  more  convenient  form  of  bringing 
up  a  child  in  the  way  you  happen  to  want  him  to 
go,  and  this  is  quite  a  different  matter.  Happily 
this  old  morality,  or  rather,  one  ought  to  say,  this 
old  immorality,  has  crumbled  to  pieces,  and  a 
sweeter,  sounder,  saner  spirit  has  taken  its  place. 
But  old  practices  have  considerable  inertia.  It  is 
still  thought,  in  certain  quarters,  a  convenience  to 
make  a  child  go  in  the  way  we  happen  to  want  him 
to  go,  rather  than  in  the  way  that  he  ought  to  go, 
and  the  result  is  what  we  see.  Children  are  sub- 
mitted to  the  inventions  devised  for  adult  life,  to 
the  clothing,  food,  confinement,  ceremonies,  bric-a- 
brac,  rapid  transit,  in  a  word,  to  the  friction  of 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  89 

modern  complex  living,  and  in  such  an  environ- 
ment they  prove  so  altogether  inconvenient  that 
they  must  be  suppressed,  in  order  to  save  the 
already  tense  nerves  of  the  adidt  world.  It  would 
be  pretty  hard  lines  for  us,  if  we  were  obliged  to 
listen  to  conversations  in  which  we  could  take 
neither  part  nor  interest,  and  when  we  wanted  to 
read  Maeterlinck  or  Hauptmann,  to  be  told  that 
something  else  was  better  for  us.  The  plan  of 
suppression,  as  a  mere  convenience,  works  very 
badly.  No  one  has  quite  the  heart  to  really  carry 
it  out,  or  perhaps  the  physical  strength  or  patience, 
and  the  result  must  be  accounted  a  product  of  our 
own  mismanagement,  and  of  nothing  so  comforting 
as  total  depravity.  And  when  we  remember  that 
this  plan  of  suppression,  even  were  it  a  success 
as  an  adult  convenience,  would  be  an  out-and-out 
failure  educationally,  since  it  corrodes  the  very 
mainspring  of  life,  it  is  evident  that  we  must  seek 
for  some  other  way  out. 

The  better  plan  is  the  more  gracious  task  of  carry- 
ing into  every-day  life  the  beautiful  dreams  of  our 
singers  and  prophets.  In  this  entirely  practical 
inquiry  into  education,  I  feel  at  liberty  to  advocate 
these  more  ideal  and  beautiful  methods,  because  I 
hope  to  show  in  the  chapter  on  cause  and  effect 
that  only  those  things  are  moral  and  beautiful 
which  are  at  the  same  time  practicable.  And  I 
mean  to  urge,  what  idealists  are  not  commonly  sup- 
posed to  urge,  that  one's  practicality  is  the  true 
measure  of  one's  morality.    These  beautiful  dreams 


90  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

of  a  fairer  and  more  vital  world  require  love  and 
courage  to  realize  them.  But  both  love  and  cour- 
age are  practical  qualities  which  already  exist,  and 
which  may  be  heightened  by  all  those  who  regard 
them  as  worthy  objects  of  pursuit.  If  we  believe 
with  Milton,  that  poetry  is  simple,  sensuous,  pas- 
sionate, then  by  making  daily  life  simple  and  sen- 
suous and  passionate,  we  should  be  making  it  a 
veritable  poem.  This  programme  of  effort  accords 
very  well  with  the  more  prosaic  analysis  that  we 
have  all  along  been  insisting  upon.  We  could 
apply  such  a  programme  nowhere  so  fittingly  and 
with  such  high  hope  of  success  as  in  the  process  of 
the  children. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  more  rational 
plan  of  development  makes  quite  unnecessary  that 
other  plan  of  suppression  which  we  have  seen  to  be 
both  so  unsuccessf  id  and  so  disastrous.  The  better 
plan  requires  that  children  shall  not  be  submitted 
to  the  complicated  inventions  devised  for  adult  life, 
shall  not  be  asked  to  be  overdressed,  and  unduly  fed, 
and  closely  housed  ;  to  sit  as  still  as  a  mouse,  when 
every  drop  of  red  blood  surging  through  their  veins 
urges  them  into  activity  ;  to  bury  themselves  with 
abstractions  and  generalizations  before  the  data  of 
the  concrete  world  have  been  at  all  mastered ;  to 
put  down  that  warm  flood  of  feeling  which  consti- 
tutes their  very  life. 

To  be  simple, — this  is  less  expensive  and  less 
difficult  than  to  be  complex.  It  means  for  children 
the  least  clothing  necessary,  a  wholesome,  unexcit- 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  91 

ing  diet,  apartments  free  from  useless  impedimenta 
and  rich  in  the  more  subtle  beauty  of  coloi^and 
proportion.  It  means  long  hours  of  sleep  and  prod- 
igal hours  in  the  open,  ample  exercise  and  self- 
prompted  occupations. 

To  be  sensuous,  —  this  is  the  special  privilege 
of  childhood  ;  to  care  frankly  and  lovingly  for  the 
rich  world  of  sensation,  for  warmth  and  sunshine 
and  color,  for  sound  and  form  and  odor ;  to  rejoice 
in  health  and  bodily  power  and  appetite ;  to  feel 
the  charm  and  glory  of  the  magnificent  drama  of 
Nature ;  to  find  life  sweet  and  glad. 

And  finally,  to  be  passionate,  —  it  is  to  touch 
this  simplicity  and  sensuousness  with  feeling,  and 
so  to  make  it  human  and  fine. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  children  much  of 
this  provision  is  purely  negative,  nothing  more  than 
a  commendable  letting  alone.  In  an  atmosphere 
so  free  from  stress  as  this,  there  is  every  induce- 
ment for  self -activity  and  for  a  wholesome  uncon- 
sciousness of  process.  From  our  own  point  of 
view,  the  very  letting  alone  is  the  part  of  a  positive 
plan.  The  simplicity  and  sense  culture  and  passion 
are  objects  of  educational  effort. 

When  one  starts  upon  such  a  pursuit  as  this,  the 
danger  is  that  these  elements  may  come  to  be  mis- 
taken for  ends  in  themselves.  It  is  this  mistaking 
of  means  for  ends  which  makes  reformers  rather 
tiresome  traveling  companions.  A  simplicity  which 
is  overconscious  is  much  worse  than  a  complexity 
taken  for  granted  and  submerged. 


92  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

In  reality  these  elements  are  only  means.  It  is 
theu"  cumulative  effect  which  makes  the  rich  life 
of  humanity.  The  simplicity  is  the  condition  of 
health  and  self-activity.  The  sensuousness  is  that 
consciousness  of  the  outer  world  which  makes  pos- 
sible a  full  report  of  the  senses,  and  a  consequent 
rich  material  of  thought.  The  passion  is  the  love 
and  interest  and  reverence  and  enthusiasm  of  life, 
the  motive  power  back  of  all  that  is  excellent  and 
beautiful. 

We  commonly  think  of  education  as  something 
which  has  to  do  with  children  and  young  people, 
and  with  them  alone.  Sometimes,  to  be  sure,  we 
please  ourselves  with  platitudes  about  education's 
extending  through  the  whole  of  life  ;  but,  with  our 
commercial  ideas  of  the  value  of  adult  time,  we  see 
to  it  that  education,  as  an  effective  process,  shall' 
not  interfere  with  the  purposes  of  trade.  When 
this  non-human  spirit  dies,  however,  and  we  turn 
to  a  truer  and  sounder  life,  we  shall  be  applying 
the  term  education  to  the  whole  of  life  as  a  process 
by  which  we  realize  the  social  purpose.  As  I  have 
already  said,  it  is  in  this  broader  sense  that  the 
term  will  be  used  throughout  the  present  inquiry, 
as  an  all-inclusive  process  which  begins  with  the 
first  act  of  parenthood,  and  ends  only  when,  with 
reverent  hands,  we  close  the  eyes  of  those  who 
travel  into  the  undiscovered  country.  It  seems  to 
me,  then,  that  there  is  no  defensible  warrant  for 
the  great  gulf  which  in  thought  and  practice  we 
place  between  childhood  and  adult  life.     The  sim- 


I 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  93 

plicity  and  sensuousness  and  passion  which  are  so 
admirable  in  the  little  ones  are  no  less  admirable 
in  men  and  women.  The  inventions  devised  for 
the  adult  world,  those  inventions  which  hinder  the 
perfection  of  childhood,  are  in  reality  fatal  as  well 
to  manhood.  As  a  counterpart  to  the  enfant 
terrible  of  the  American  home,  we  have  the  unlov- 
able, unbeautiful,  ungracious  men  and  women  of 
our  social  and  business  world.  The  way  out  for 
us  is  the  same  as  the  way  out  for  the  children,  — 
it  is  the  simplifying  of  our  lives,  the  vivifying  of 
our  bodies,  the  rebirth  of  our  feelings. 

This  simple  and  untechnical  account  of  the 
source  of  power  finds  ample  verification  in  every 
page  of  history,  for  the  world-story  after  all  is 
nothing  more  than  the  story  of  human  sentiment. 
The  causes  that  have  been  lost  and  won,  the  victo- 
ries and  defeats,  the  Reformation  and  the  Kenais- 
sance,  all  the  great  things  that  have  been  done, 
have  been  first  achieved  in  the  emotional  life,  in 
the  human  spirit.  The  immense  material  resources 
of  Asia  hurl  themselves  against  Greek  sentiment 
and  are  shattered.  The  Roman  empire,  robbed  of 
Roman  spirit,  falls  apart ;  China,  the  unalterable, 
the  anesthetic,  is  dying.  Napoleon's  cynical  re- 
mark that  Heaven  espoused  the  cause  of  the  larger 
army  was  nowhere  better  disproved  than  in  his 
own  history.  The  power  of  a  patriot  following  is 
a  spiritual  fact  which  finds  admittance  to  the  army 
and  navy  register.  A  handful  of  colonial  farmers 
is  worth  a  regiment  of  Hessians.     And  so,  too, 


94  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

with  conservatism.  It  has  been  routed  by  an  in< 
visible  enemy.  After  Waterloo,  we  find  the  forces 
of  reaction  in  possession  of  Europe,  in  possession 
of  armies  and  revenues  and  thrones.  But  in  the 
heart  of  the  people  there  was  a  greater  force,  and 
the  work  of  liberation  has  not  ceased.  To  one  man 
comes  a  supreme  passion ;  the  unity  of  Italy,  it  may 
be,  the  reality  of  the  Fatherland,  the  liberation  of 
Greece ;  and  behold,  it  is  an  accomplished  fact. 

It  was  the  wise  Goethe  who  said,  "  Be  careful 
what  you  pray  for  in  your  youth,  lest  you  get  too 
much  of  it  in  your  old  age." 

If  we  pray  for  profit  and  wages  and  all  sorts  of 
messes  of  pottage,  we  shall  get  them.  If  we  pray 
for  outward  conformity  and  stock  education,  we 
shall  get  them.  If  we  pray  for  ugliness  and  squalor 
and  sweatshops  and  the  tenement  house  of  a  hun- 
dred sorrows,  we  shall  get  them. 

But  suppose  that  we  changed  our  prayer.  Sup- 
pose we  prayed  for  health  and  beauty  and  accom- 
plishment and  power  and  social  fellowship,  for 
that  human  wealth  which  will  go  all  round,  for  the 
wealth  of  individual  integrity  and  of  social  well- 
being.  Surely  as  come  the  seedtime  and  the  har- 
vest, we  should  get  these  things  too.  When  this 
human  wealth  becomes  an  abiding  emotion  it  will 
become  a  reality.  The  one  irresistible,  unconquer- 
able thing  in  all  the  world  is  human  sentiment. 
The  civilization  of  to-day  is  vital  just  in  proportion 
as  it  engages  that  sentiment.  It  is  a  memory  as 
soon  as  the  sentiment  is  withdrawn. 


THE  SOURCE  OF  POWER  95 

The  institutions  of  the  hour  are  vested  interests. 
They  are  built  of  solid  substances,  of  brick  and 
stone,  wood  and  metal.  They  have  money  in  the 
bank.  A  philosopher  comes  along  and  laughs  at 
them ;  a  great  teacher  rebukes  them ;  a  saint  points 
beyond  them.  What  is  the  result  ?  They  dissolve 
into  the  past. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  omnipotence 
of  human  feeling,  of  human  emotion,  of  human 
desire.  It  is  the  giant,  the  wonder-worker,  and 
its  service  must  be  engaged  in  any  human  adven- 
ture in  order  to  make  the  adventure  succeed.  It 
is  a  monopoly  of  power  of  the  most  colossal  kind, 
a  trust  which  may  be  used  for  the  advantage  or 
the  disadvantage  of  mankind. 

"  A  ruddy  drop  of  manly  blood 
The  snrg^ing  sea  outweighs." 

In  the  face  of  so  tremendous  and  unequivocal  a 
lesson,  one  cannot  ignore  the  motive  power  of  a 
world.  The  miller  looks  to  his  mill-race ;  the  en- 
gineer replenishes  his  coal-bin ;  the  motor-man  sees 
to  his  current ;  the  sailor  regards  the  quarter  of 
the  wind  ;  so  must  we  people  who  have  more  impor- 
tant concerns  on  hand  look  for  the  carrying  out 
of  them  to  the  strength  and  purity  of  the  feelings. 
As  men  we  must  see  to  it  that  the  heart  beats 
high ;  as  educators  we  must  see  to  it  that  the  tide 
of  childish  feeling  is  at  the  flood ;  as  sociologists 
we  must  see  to  it  that  the  people  care.  As  we  do 
this,  we  are  strong ;  as  we  fail  to  do  it,  we  are 


96  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

weak.  Pagan  defeat  and  superseding  came  when 
the  human  heart  grew  faint.  It  is  the  same  world, 
this  in  which  we  live ;  the  source  of  its  power  is 
still  in  the  round  tower  of  the  heart. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ORGANIC  EDUCATION 

The  people  of  power  are  the  people  who  have 
not  only  the  strong  motive  force  of  a  conserving 
passion,  but  as  well  a  keen  and  efficient  tool  for 
carrying  out  its  purposes.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  the  unity  of  man,  it  is  impossible  to  attain  power 
save  through  the  development  of  all  the  faculties  of 
the  body,  the  five  senses  of  sight  and  hearing  and 
touch  and  taste  and  smell ;  the  normal  appetites 
for  food  and  exercise ;  the  habit  of  free  intellectual 
play,  and  the  healthful  life  of  the  emotions.  To 
have  these  operating  together  for  the  realization 
of  a  high  social  purpose,  this  is  the  health  of  the 
human  organism,  and  nothing  less  than  this  may 
be  accepted  as  success. 

So  it  happens  that  those  of  us  who  hold  to  this 
conception  of  the  unit  man,  look  upon  education 
as  a  process  of  organic  culture,  the  thoroughgoing 
culture  of  all  sides  of  man's  nature,  practically  the 
regeneration  of  his  organism  ;  for  it  is  only  by  such 
a  process  that  he  can  come  into  a  totality  of  power, 
and  can  satisfy  that  impulse  towards  perfection 
which  is  the  most  abiding  impulse  of  the  human 
spirit. 


98  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  raw  material  of  thought,  if  such  an  expres- 
sion be  permissible,  is  composed  of  those  elements 
of  consciousness  which  we  call  the  reports  of  the 
senses.  Objectively  speaking,  it  is  the  stuff  out  of 
which  the  whole  thought-life  is  built.  The  brain 
can  add  nothing  to  this  material.  It  can  only  work 
it  over,  and  combine  it  into  new  relations.  The 
thought-life  is  dependent  for  its  fullness  upon  two 
quite  determinate  factors,  —  upon  the  completeness 
and  accuracy  of  this  report  of  the  senses,  and  upon 
the  soundness  of  the  brain  process  in  working  the 
sense  report  into  thought. 

One  does  not  have  to  be  a  very  profound  philo- 
sopher to  perceive  the  bearing  of  all  this  upon 
organic  soundness  and  integrity.  Deficient  sense 
organs  cannot  report  the  so-called  outer  world  with 
any  degree  of  accuracy  and  completeness.  If  we 
could  imagine  that  these  reports  were  all  that  they 
should  be,  that  the  sense  organs  were  doing  good 
work  both  at  the  outer  extremities  and  at  the 
corresponding  brain  centres,  we  should  still  not  be 
able  to  expect  resultant  power  if  the  brain  lacked 
skill  in  working  up  this  material  into  thought. 
Knowledge  is  a  perception  of  relations.  It  implies, 
therefore,  both  the  apprehension  of  detached  facts 
and  the  bringing  them  into  orderly  relation. 

It  would  seem  that,  as  a  practical  people,  we  are 
doing  a  most  foolish  thing  to  expect  human  ef- 
ficiency without  fulfilling  the  conditions  of  human 
efficiency. 

If  we  have  any  doubt  about  the  illogic  of  our 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  99 

expectation,  we  have  only  to  turn  to  life  and  ask  if 
human  power  has  been  attained.  I  should  be  sorry 
to  make  out  a  bad  case  for  life's  power,  for  I  have 
the  most  unbounded  hope  in  its  ultimate  attain- 
ment, but  the  results  so  far  are  singularly  meagre. 
The  world  is  centuries  old,  and  the  opportunities 
for  performance  have  been  manifold  and  varied, 
and  humankind  has  been  like  the  sands  of  the  sea. 
But  in  the  calm,  unemotional  survey  of  the  world 
which  the  sociologists  give  us,  it  seems  that,  on  the 
whole,  few  human  performances  have  been  notable, 
and  few  men  and  women  have  been  distinguished. 
The  exact  estimate  of  individual  power  is  one  dis- 
tinguished person  in  every  half  million.^  In  Amer- 
ica, then,  we  may  boast  about  a  hundred  and  fifty 
distinguished  men  and  women.  Such  an  estimate 
is  of  course  open  to  serious  question,  since  we  might 
not  agree  to  the  same  definition  of  distinction.  A 
better  test  is,  perhaps,  to  consult  our  own  experi- 
ence, beginning  our  criticism  where  charity  rightly 
begins,  —  at  home.  It  would  be  an  ungracious 
task  to  catalogue  too  closely  our  own  abundant  de- 
fect and  to  set  off  against  it  the  slender  list  of  our 
merit ;  but  surely  every  man  and  woman  of  us  at- 
tempting to  live  the  life  and  gain  the  power  of 
totality  must  stand  aghast  at  the  spectacle  of  so 
very  partial  a  performance.     Nor  is  the  weakness 

^  It  is  true  that  the  last  edition  of  "  Who  's  Who  in  America  " 
contains  over  eleven  thousand  names,  but  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  these  people  are  not  distinguished,  but  are  merely  promi- 
nent for  the  moment  by  reason  of  official  position  or  other  tran' 
sient  emphasis. , 


100  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

far  to  seek.  It  comes  from  our  partial  hold  upon 
life,  from  the  incompleteness  with  which  we  see  and 
hear  and  touch  and  taste  and  smell,  from  the  limi- 
tations and  the  dullness  of  the  brain,  from  the 
insensibility  of  the  heart. 

If  the  same  scrutiny  be  turned  towards  our 
neighbor,  and  with  gentler  method  we  inquire  into 
his  shortcomings,  we  find  it  even  as  with  ourselves. 
It  is  in  his  lack  of  totality,  his  failure  to  report  the 
universe,  his  insufficient  grasp,  his  too  feeble  pulse. 
Deaf  and  dumb  and  blind  and  anesthetic,  we  stand 
in  the  midst  of  a  universal  wealth  which  we  are  un- 
able to  appropriate. 

This  poverty  of  organic  power  is  not  compen- 
sated by  any  amount  of  mechanical  devices  or  any 
aggregate  of  material  wealth.  It  is  an  illusion  to 
substitute  modem  inventions  for  personal  human 
power,  and  to  imagine  that  the  world  has  gained  in 
excellence  by  the  substitution.  Let  us  recite  the 
facts,  i^  The  modern  man  has  a  voice  which  is  a  bit 
squeaky  and  harsh,  and  boasts  no  great  carrying 
power ;  but  then  he  has  the  long  distance  telephone, 
and  can  call  prices  from  New  York  to  Chicago. 
Stentor  could  not  have  done  that.  The  modem 
man  is  rather  near-sighted  and  astigmatic,  and  may 
fail  to  recognize  his  best  friend  across  the  street ; 
but  then  he  can  look  at  the  moon  through  his  great 
telescopes,  and  can  see  things  which  Ptolemy  never 
caught  sight  of.  Our  modern  man  may  be  a  little 
dull  of  hearing  and  rather  hard  to  talk  to,  but  with 
the  microphone  he  can  hear  a  fly  walk.     He  is  a 


I 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  101 

trifle  short-winded  and  finds  running  fatal,  but  why- 
should  he  want  to  run  when  the  "  elevated  "  shoots 
him  over  the  city,  and  the  "  limited  "  over  the  coun- 
try ?  All  along  the  line  of  modem  human  defect  we 
find  the  substitution  of  some  mechanical  excellence. 
The  modem  man  is  not  personally  attractive,  but 
he  has  undoubted  taste  in  bric-^brac.  He  has  lost 
his  wholesome  appetite,  but  gained  a  French  cook. 
He  fails  in  democracy,  but  he  gives  alms.  He  de- 
nies himself  fresh  air  and  pure  water,  but  he  has 
the  sanitarium  and  the  doctor.  Stated  in  this  bald 
fashion,  the  illusion  is  evident.  One  puts  it  aside 
as  resolutely  as  one  would  put  aside  the  tempter 
himself.  The  substitutes  are  poor  trinkets  to  be 
offered  in  exchange  for  human  power  and  beauty 
and  excellence. 

From  this  way  of  looking  at  life,  all  activity 
which  makes  against  the  health  and  sanity  and 
completeness  of  organic  power  is  criminal,  and  this, 
whether  the  wrong  be  committed  in  the  name  of 
education,  or  industry,  or  art,  or  religion.  Know- 
ledge itself  is  a  poor  thing  unless  it  be  the  instru- 
ment of  power,  and  knowledge  gained  at  the  ex- 
pense of  power  stands  condemned  already.  One 
cannot  recover  from  one's  surprise  to  find  so  self- 
conscious  a  process  as  education,  a  process  which 
we  all  admit  to  be  a  means  and  not  an  end,  ignor- 
ing its  own  material,  the  sensational  world ;  ignoring 
its  own  process,  the  wholesome  all-round  activity 
of  the  organism ;  ignoring  its  own  end,  the  cidtiva- 
tion  of  power,  and  turning  to  the  cheap  substitutes 


102  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

of  outer  fact.  And  this  again  is  due,  it  seems  to 
tne,  to  the  evil  influences  of  our  commercial  ideas 
of  life  generally.  The  definite  informational  know- 
ledge has  been  held  to  have  a  clearly  recognized 
market  value ;  it  is  a  tangible  possession  akin  to 
the  machinery  upon  which  we  set  so  great  store, 
and  it  is  supposed  fn  some  occult  way  to  offer  a 
preparation  for  future  work.  Organic  culture  has 
no  market  in  view.  It  has  small  eye  to  the  future. 
It  proposes  only  the  goal  of  the  present,  for  it  does 
believe  that  this  human  end  is  better  than  the  mar- 
ket, and  that  the  only  earnest  of  a  good  f  utiu*e  is  a 
well-used  present. 

The  panorama  of  life  unrolls  itself  before  each 
one  of  us,  and  to  each  offers  a  different  signifi- 
cance. We  may  believe,  if  we  choose,  that  the  pan- 
orama at  bottom  is  one  and  the  same  thing,  and 
that  the  different  report  we  return  of  it  is  due  to 
the  personal  equation  of  the  observer.  But  as  we 
have  seen,  the  impression  made  upon  us  is  all  that 
we  apprehend.  Whatever  theory  we  may  hold  re- 
garding the  essential  nature  of  the  panorama,  we 
must  act  upon  our  experience  of  it,  and  our  experi- 
ence runs  somewhat  like  this  :  at  the  circumference 
of  our  life  we  encounter  the  outer  world.  We  see 
and  hear  and  touch  and  taste  and  smell  through 
the  contact  of  the  several  sense  organs  with  this 
outer  world.  The  activity  is  peripheral.  From 
each  extremity,  each  sense  contact,  flows  a  nerve 
impulse  to  the  centre,  to  the  brain,  and  here,  by 
a  subtle  magic  which  science  has  not  been  able  to 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  103 

explain,  the  nerve  impulse  translates  itself  into  a 
sense  impression,  a  sensation.  These  nerve  im- 
pulses are  the  only  avenues  of  approach  to  the  hu- 
man intelligence.  They  are,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
whole  raw  material  out  of  which  the  panorama  of 
life  is  built. 

If  we  take  any  one  organ,  as  the  ear,  the  dif- 
ferences in  its  report  are  tremendous.  The  ear  of 
the  average  man  transmits  enough  sound  to  enable 
him  to  carry  on  the  average  occupations  of  life. 
He  detects  the  larger  differences  of  sound,  the  soft 
and  loud  tones,  and  in  a  rough  way  is  conscious 
of  the  pitch,  and  notices  the  varied  character  of 
the  tones.  But  the  finer  distinctions  are  all  lost, 
—  the  smooth  modulation  by  which  we  pass  from 
soft  to  loud,  the  relationship  of  pitch  expressed  in 
the  musical  scale,  the  varying  overtones  which  de- 
termine the  character  of  the  note.  The  two  ears, 
simply  as  bodily  organs,  are  quite  unlike.  One  of 
them  is  a  finer,  keener  instrument  than  the  other, 
and  in  human  service  and  esteem  is  surely  worth 
more  than  the  other.  It  will  do  very  much  the 
better  work.  And  the  one  ear  has  been  made 
better  simply  by  training,  the  inherited  training  of 
a  fortunate  birth  and  circumstance,  and  the  train- 
ing of  personal,  individual  effort.  To  the  outer 
ear,  sound  is  nothing  but  an  air  pulse.  All  the 
differences  of  sound,  the  loudness,  the  pitch,  the 
timbre,  are  represented  in  the  air  pidse.  But  this 
air  pulse  means  nothing  to  the  brain  in  such  form, 
and  the  worth  of  the  ear,  its  sensitiveness,  depends 


104  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

solely  upon  the  nicety  with  which  these  air  pulses 
are  translated  into  nerve  currents  and  sent  hurrying 
along  to  the  brain,  and  upon  the  discrimination  of 
the  brain  itself  in  turning  the  nerve  currents  into 
the  sensation  of  sound.  Practically,  then,  we  have 
three  necessary  elements,  —  the  transmitter,  the 
connecting  line,  and  the  receiver,  and  each  must 
act  effectively  and  surely.  An  anatomically  perfect 
outer  ear  with  a  paralyzed  auditory  nerve,  or  a 
healthy  nerve  with  a  hardened  ear  drum,  or  a 
healthy  outer  ear  and  nerve  with  an  inefficient 
brain  centre,  and  we  have  an  organ  failing  to  per- 
form its  function.  The  magnificent  sensitiveness 
which  calls  forth  our  admiration,  the  ability  to 
recognize  unerringly  the  notes  of  the  scale,  to 
distinguish  between  D^  and  Eb,  to  detect  the  dis- 
crepancies in  the  tempered  scale,  or  to  note  the 
overtones  of  a  given  fundamental,  this  superb 
excellence  of  ear  depends  upon  the  health  of  all 
three  elements,  of  outer  ear,  and  connecting  nerve, 
and  receiving  brain  centre. 

I  recall  a  lecture  on  sound  shadows,  where  the 
source  of  sound  was  a  very  high-pitched  whistle, 
making  many  thousand  vibrations  per  second. 
The  usual  piano  of  seven  and  a  third  octaves  ranges 
from  about  29  to  4096  vibrations  per  second,  while 
the  human  voice  falls  between  87  and  775.  The 
effect  of  the  whistle  was  individual  in  the  extreme. 
Many  of  the  audience,  people  of  presumably  nor- 
mal hearing,  were  quite  unconscious  of  the  sound, 
but  those  who  did  hear,  found  the  note  almost  un- 
endurable on  account  of  its  penetrating  quality. 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  105. 

One  need  not  enlarge  upon  the  different  universe, 
the  widely  varied  panorama  of  life,  which  this  in- 
dividual constitution  of  the  ear  alone  brings  about ; 
and  yet  sound  is  only  a  small  part  of  the  day's 
experience. 

If  you  take  some  other  organ,  such  as  the  eye, 
which  is  occupied  during  the  entire  waking  day, 
the  difference  is  even  more  striking.  The  average 
eye  is  a  dull  organ,  dull  in  its  perception  of  form, 
of  color-tone,  of  light  and  shade.  The  panorama 
which  it  reports  is  a  poor,  blurred  affair,  a  meagre 
wood-cut  compared  to  the  glorious  painting  seen 
by  the  sensitive,  cultivated  eye.  It  is  a  newspaper 
illustration  alongside  of  Titian  or  Guercino.  It  is 
a  matter  of  common  experience  and  comment  that 
mountaineers  so  little  appreciate  the  marvelous 
beauty  of  their  surroundings.  It  is  frequently  ex- 
plained as  the  dulling  effect  of  familiarity.  But 
this,  I  think,  is  not  the  right  explanation.  We 
do  grow  callous  to  ugliness,  for  when  we  once 
recognize  it  we  withdraw  our  thought  from  it,  and 
ignore  and  deny  it  until  it  almost  ceases  to  be. 
But  the  reverse  holds  in  the  things  of  beauty.  If 
we  once  see  beauty  we  see  it  increasingly,  for  our 
thought  goes  out  to  it  and  dwells  upon  it  and 
appropriates  it,  even  exaggerates  it,  as  Ruskin  in 
the  presence  of  Turner.  The  insensible  dwellers  in 
the  midst  of  beauty  see  houses  and  trees,  fields  and 
forests  and  mountains  ;  they  see  the  possessions  of 
their  neighbors,  the  farms  of  Smith  and  Brown 
and  Robinson;  but  the  landscape,  which  no  man 
owns,  they  do  not  see  and  cannot  delight  in. 


106  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

To  take  a  cross-country  walk  with  a  friend  is  to 
submit  him  to  a  searching  examination.  What  he 
sees  and  points  out  to  you  is  extremely  significant. 
His  comments  are  revelations,  not  of  the  country, 
but  of  himself.  He  never  reports  the  whole  pano- 
rama, for  he  never  sees  it.  His  panorama  is  one 
of  form,  or  color,  or  light  and  shade,  or  science,  or 
trade,  or  human  import.  One  man  sees  beauty, 
another  geology,  another  crops  and  values,  another 
domestic  possibilities.  A  stroll  through  a  picture 
gallery  discloses  the  same  large  differences.  Here 
the  painter  speaks.  Looking  at  his  picture,  you 
may  know  what  sort  of  eyes  he  had.  It  is  useless 
to  answer  that  we  have  all  the  same  sort  of  eyes, 
and  it  is  only  a  different  way  of  using  them.  The 
eye  may  be  structurally  much  the  same  in  all  of 
us,  but  as  an  organ  of  service,  it  includes  the  optic 
nerve  and  the  brain  centre :  the  function  of  see- 
ing is  so  individual  that  the  panorama  of  life  is  a 
strictly  private  possession. 

Equally  marked  are  the  differences  in  touch  and 
taste  and  smell.  If  these  senses  are  alert  and 
keen,  the  universe  is  one  thing.  If  they  are  dull 
and  uncertain,  the  universe  is  something  quite  dif- 
ferent. 

We  can  do  little  for  the  betterment  of  the  outer 
organs,  the  eye  and  ear  and  the  rest.  We  can 
help  them  out  with  certain  mechanical  devices,  but 
these  correct  only  anatomical  defects.  The  real 
field  for  culture  is  interior. 

The  basis  of  all  organic  culture  is  good  healthy 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  IW 

the  health,  of  sound  nerve  and  red  blood.  The 
strength  of  a  chain  is  measured  by  its  weakest 
link.  Between  the  circumference  and  the  centre, 
between  the  outer  sense  organ  and  the  inner  brain 
centre,  there  intervenes  the  machinery  of  commu- 
nication, of  transmission,  —  the  carrying  nerves,  — 
and  these  must  be  fulfilling  their  office,  passing 
along  the  impulse  centreward,  or  the  terminals  are 
of  scant  service.  In  the  same  way  the  brain  cen- 
tre, as  we  have  seen,  must  be  in  good  order,  or  all 
fails.  Now  beyond  supplying  false  drums  for  the 
ear,  and  correcting  lenses  for  the  eye,  and  burn- 
ing out  obstructions  in  the  nose,  and  cutting  the 
binding  tendon  of  the  ring  finger,  we  can  do  al- 
most nothing  for  the  outer  sense  organs,  and  no- 
thing, so  far  as  we  know,  for  the  transmitting 
nerve,  beyond  general  good  health  and  vigor.  It 
would  seem,  then,  that  to  cultivate  the  senses  is  to 
cultivate  the  brain  end  of  them.  It  looks  very 
much  as  if  the  cultivation  of  the  senses  is  really 
mental  culture,  and  not  a  distinct  and  separate 
bodily  culture  at  all.  And  this  is  precisely  what 
we  believe,  we  who  believe  in  organic  education, 
and  we  believe  it  both  from  our  fundamental  view 
of  the  unity  of  man,  and  also  from  this  quite  un- 
theoretical  and  every-day  method  of  getting  at 
the  heart  of  the  matter.  That  we  see  and  hear 
and  touch  and  taste  and  smeU  in  consciousness  is 
the  direct  conclusion  of  experience  as  well  as  of 
that  idealistic  philosophy  which  rests  upon  expe- 
rience. 


108  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

This  sort  of  sense  culture  multiplies  tremendously 
the  power  of  human  acquisitiveness,  —  the  only- 
kind  of  greed  which  a  man  given  over  to  the  study 
and  pursuit  of  perfection  can  at  all  commend  and 
practice.  The  seeing  eye  and  hearing  ear,  and  dis- 
criminating touch  and  taste  and  smell,  bring  into 
consciousness  a  perfect  wealth  of  sensation,  abun- 
dant material  for  abundant  thought.  This  alone 
would  make  life  very  rich.  It  is  the  sensuousness 
of  the  poet,  and  with  simplicity  and  passion  is  the 
material  of  the  highest  expression  of  life.  This 
rich  sensuousness  makes  the  difference  between  the 
full  and  the  meagre  temperament,  the  wealthy  man 
and  the  poor  man.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  how 
men,  clever  enough  to  see  the  bearing  of  this  on 
the  power  of  life,  and  consciously  deficient  in  it 
themselves,  have  bemoaned  their  poverty.  Emer- 
son writing  to  Carlyle,  Amiel  writing  to  himself, 
the  half  joy  of  the  twentieth  century  face  to  face 
with  the  full  joy  of  Greece,  all  confessions,  all  con- 
trasts, pour  out  the  same  burden  of  complaint,  — 
the  complaint  of  temperamental  limitation.  If  the 
sense  culture  of  which  I  speak  accomplished  only 
this,  if  it  brought  the  rich  phenomenal  world  in 
full,  sound  measure  into  human  consciousness,  it 
would  be  rendering  a  tremendous  service,  and  one 
might  still  advocate  it  with  a  large  enthusiasm. 
But  the  office  of  sense  culture  is  double. 

Speaking  objectively,  the  general  ability  of  the 
brain  to  work  up  sensation  into  thought  depends  upon 
its  own  structural  power.  With  the  development 
of  each  sense,  there  goes  along  with  it  the  develop. 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  109 

ment  of  the  corresponding  brain  centre,  and  this 
latter  development,  as  we  have  seen,  really  consti- 
tutes the  sense  culture.  The  work  of  Paul  Flech- 
sig,  of  Leipzig,  though  questioned  by  some  psychol- 
ogists at  the  time,  seems  now  to  be  very  generally 
accepted.  The  sense  of  touch  has  its  centre  in  the 
vertical  lobe  of  the  brain ;  the  sense  of  smell,  in 
the  frontal  lobe ;  the  sense  of  light,  in  the  occipital 
lobe,  and  the  sense  of  hearing,  in  the  temporal  lobe. 
Between  these  four  sense  centres  lie  the  real  organs 
of  mental  life,  the  great  thought  centres,  or  centres 
of  association.  They  are  regarded  by  physiologists 
as  the  highest  instruments  of  psychic  activity,  the 
physical  centre  of  thought  and  consciousness,  and 
are  distinguished  from  the  sense  centres  by  a  pecu- 
liar and  elaborate  nerve  structure.  But  the  brain 
itself  is  nothing  more  than  an  assemblage  of  all 
these  centres,  and  their  development  means  the 
development  of  the  brain  as  a  whole.  So  it  turns 
out  that  along  with  one's  increased  power  of  know- 
ing the  universe  goes  an  increased  possibility  of 
thinking  about  it  and  putting  it  into  orderly  rela- 
tion.. The  very  culture  which  brings  this  wealth 
of  material  brings  the  power  to  use  it.  The  quanti- 
tative exercise  of  the  sense  centres  means  increased 
coordination  of  the  faculties,  and  increased  develop- 
ment of  the  thought  centres.  Intellectual  activity 
appears  to  be  a  direct  function  of  brain  surface, 
just  as  the  intensity  of  chemical  action  in  dissolving 
metals  in  acid  is  a  direct  function  of  the  surface 
exposed.  The  total  brain  surface  is  the  sum  of 
the  surfaces  of  its  parts. 


110  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  this  double  office  of  sense 
culture  we  have  a  profoundly  significant  truth,  one 
which  we  are  bound  to  lay  practical  hold  upon,  and 
having  laid  hold  upon,  to  apply  in  education.  As 
a  safeguard,  it  may  be  wise  to  again  remark,  par- 
enthetically, that  this  account  of  brain  action  is  a 
convenience  of  language,  and  must  not  blind  us 
to  the  fact  that  what  we  experience  is  an  integral 
stream  of  consciousness. 

If  this  sense  culture  yield  such  mental  power, 
and  we  are  after  power,  it  is  natural  to  inquire 
whether  there  is  any  other  method  of  direct  culture, 
any  other  way  of  getting  at  the  brain,  and  making 
it  still  more  efficient.  There  appears  to  be  none. 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  get  at  the  brain  directly. 
It  is  an  inaccessible  centre.  One  must  approach  it 
along  the  avenues  of  the  sensory  nerves.  The  brain 
gives  audience  to  but  one  class  of  ambassador,  and 
that  is  neural.  If,  then,  the  brain  is  to  be  de- 
veloped physiologically,  it  must  be  done  by  such 
exercise  of  the  centres  as  will  develop  the  centres 
physiologically.  This  development  is  the  necessary 
accompaniment  of  all  exercise  of  the  senses  which 
is  not  automatic.  When  it  is  automatic,  it  has  no 
longer  any  power  to  attract  the  attention,  and  con- 
sequently no  educational  value.  In  any  scheme  of 
scientific  sense  culture,  therefore,  the  work  must  be 
changed  before  it  reaches  the  automatic  stage.  It 
is  in  this  respect  that  school  work  differs  so  essen- 
tially from  factory  work.  Furthermore,  the  greater 
^laim  of  the  work  upon  one's  attention,  short  of  un- 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  111 

wholesome  fatigue  and  dulling  of  emotional  interest, 
the  richer  the  mental  reaction.  As  quantitative 
work  makes  this  demand  in  the  largest  measure, 
it  is  of  all  sense  exercise  quite  the  most  valuable. 

In  the  ordinary  course  of  study,  the  curriculum 
of  the  present  day,  we  too  much  deny  this  prin- 
ciple of  brain  development.  Many  of  the  studies 
are  offered  as  almost  purely  disciplinary  studies, 
and  this  is  notably  the  case  with  ancient  languages 
and  certain  forms  of  mathematics.  In  many  cases 
the  discipline  is  quite  admirable,  for  it  accustoms 
the  mind  to  sound  logical  processes.  Both  the  on- 
looker and  the  student  himself  are  conscious  of 
large  benefit.  But  there  is  in  the  success  of  this 
method  of  discipline  an  element  which  has  not,  I 
think,  been  made  nearly  enough  of.  It  is  this, 
that  the  discipline  succeeds  with  clever  children, 
those  who  do  not  particularly  need  it,  but  fails  in 
the  case  of  large  numbers  of  less  evolved  little 
people.  If  the  study  were  pursued  as  an  end  in 
itself,  as  music  or  art  or  composition,  and  the 
unfit  were  eliminated  by  a  process  of  natural 
selection,  it  is  clear  that  there  could  be  no  adverse 
criticism.  In  this  case,  however,  the  study  would 
logically  have  to  be  elective,  as  it  would  manifestly 
be  cruel  and  irrational  to  doom  a  student  to  tasks 
in  which  failure  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  But 
if  a  study  be  offered  by  way  of  discipline,  and  be 
compulsory,  it  is  equally  clear  that  it  must  be  a 
means  rigidly  adapted  to  the  end  in  view  and  must 
possess  catholicity  of  application. 


112  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

When  one  looks  at  the  operation  of  the  old  cur- 
riculum, the  pursuit  of  language  and  mathematics, 
one  sees  so  many  falling  by  the  wayside,  children 
who  are  the  despair  of  their  teachers,  and  for  whom 
parents  feel  obliged  to  apologize.  In  every  high 
school,  the  land  over,  one  sees  this  constant  falling 
out  of  line.  Perhaps  only  one  third  or  one  quarter 
of  the  children  remain  to  graduate.  There  are  many 
explanations  of  this  repeated  failure,  explanations 
quite  genuine,  and  quite  convincing  to  those  who 
offer  them,  —  the  children  are  dull ;  the  standard 
is  high ;  the  school  is  very  particular  ;  it  is  not 
meant  for  the  incompetent.  We  are  all  familiar 
with  these  arguments.  But  the  matter  has  quite 
a  different  aspect  when  with  both  eyes  open  you 
are  as  willing  to  call  in  question  the  wisdom  of  the 
teachers  and  the  studies,  as  you  are  to  call  in  ques- 
tion the  wholesomeness  of  the  children.  Surely 
an  educational  process  is  failing  lamentably,  when 
it  succeeds  with  so  small  a  percentage  of  its  ma- 
terial. A  harvester  which  scattered  more  than  half 
the  grain,  a  mill  which  discarded  more  than  haK 
its  raw  material,  a  mining  enterprise  which  left 
more  than  half  the  ore  untouched,  would  not  be  re- 
garded as  very  highly  successful  operations.  How- 
ever clean  the  wheat,  or  attractive  the  ware,  or 
glittering  the  metal,  the  adventure  would  be  an 
admitted  failure.  In  current  education,  however, 
it  seems  that  many  are  called  and  few  are  chosen. 
There  are  even  institutions,  running  in  the  name 
of  education,  which  boast  of  the  number  of  stu> 


ORGANIC   EDUCATION  113 

dents  who  are  annually  squeezed  out.  It  may  be 
an  odd  way  of  looking  at  it,  but  this  sounds  to  me 
like  boasting  of  one's  own  inefficiency,  and  I  think 
we  should  all  regard  such  an  operation  as  quite 
the  thing  that  it  is. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  a  very  serious  criticism  of 
the  non-organic  education  that  it  does  not  make 
for  power,  that  it  merely  uses  power.  One  cannot 
help  being  struck  anew  with  the  numbers  of  peo- 
ple who  have  come  to  distinction  quite  outside  of 
the  formal  educational  process,  not  uneducated  peo- 
ple, but  people  educated  outside  of  the  schools,  by 
life  itself.  The  great  literatures  and  fine  arts  and 
heroisms  have  not  been  the  exclusive  or  even  the 
general  performance  of  the  learned.  The  great 
things  have  more  commonly  been  done  in  the  large 
open  of  life,  done  by  men  and  women  of  organic 
power,  and  sincere  lives,  and  warm  hearts. 

A  discipline  which  succeeds  with  clever  chil- 
dren, and  not  with  dull  ones,  has  been  put  to  no 
very  severe  test.  In  fact,  it  has  been  put  to  no 
test  whatever.  With  a  brain  depending  for  its 
material  upon  the  report  of  a  phenomenal  world, 
and  for  its  power  of  working  this  material  into 
thought  upon  its  own  internal  structure  and  nour- 
ishment, it  becomes  a  perfectly  meaningless  pro- 
cess, to  neglect  the  physiological  part,  and  propose 
the  impossible,  formal  tasks  which  now  make  miser- 
able the  daily  school  life  of  the  slow  but  sensitive 
child.  Furthermore,  children  are  dull  or  not  dull 
according  to  the  test  you  impose.    If  you  ask 


U4  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

them  to  do  things  which  happen  to  be  easy  for 
you,  and  they  repeatedly  fail,  they  may  seem  dull 
from  that  point  of  view.  But  suppose  the  tables 
were  turned,  and  they  set  the  tasks.  Suppose  they 
asked  you  to  do  the  things  which  are  quite  easy 
for  them^  and  you  repeatedly  failed,  as  you  very 
probably  would,  you  would  be  equally  dull  from 
their  point  of  view,  but  you  would  be  quite  prone 
to  defend  yourself  by  ascribing  failure  to  the  un- 
suitableness  of  the  task.  Perhaps  this  is  the  de- 
fense proper  to  both  cases ;  perhaps  the  standards 
are  not  high,  but  are  simply  wrong ;  perhaps  the 
school  is  very  particular  only  in  wanting  material 
which  will  make  success  easy  and  possible,  and  is 
not  at  all  particular  enough  about  the  skill  of  its 
teachers  and  the  reasonableness  of  its  tasks. 

Theoretically  the  educational  process  ought  to 
fit  everybody.  As  a  process,  its  sole  end  is  to 
carry  out  the  social  purpose,  and  this  purpose,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  only  the  philosophic  idea  done  in 
terms  of  life.  In  none  of  this  theoretical  founda- 
tion is  there  the  least  assumption  regarding  the 
superiority  of  the  material  to  be  acted  upon. 
There  is  no  discrimination.  The  belief  in  the 
unity  of  man  applies  to  all,  and  the  social  purpose 
applies  to  all.  There  is  practically  no  reason  why 
the  educational  process  should  regard  any  material 
as  impossible.  To  further  the  impulse  towards 
perfection  is  to  further  it  anywhere  along  the  line, 
and  to  take  humankind  as  it  is,  clever  children 
and  average  children,  and  even  dull  children,  and 


ORGANIC   EDUCATION  116 

to  regard  them  all  as  available  and  welcome  ma- 
terial. It  is  a  very  grave  criticism  of  the  current 
educational  process  that  it  is  qualified  to  deal  only 
with  selected  material  and  lacks  catholicity. 

But  when  the  process  of  organic  education  is 
submitted  to  the  same  scrutiny,  it  is  found  to  be  a 
process  which  is  the  possible  carrying  out  of  a 
logical  social  purpose.  It  asks  for  no  picked  ma- 
terial. It  is  meant  for  the  betterment  of  the  in- 
competent and  deficient.  It  is  meant,  too,  for  the 
betterment  of  the  clever  and  the  average.  It  is 
only  by  such  comprehensiveness  that  the  educa- 
tional process  can  carry  out  the  social  purpose. 
Organic  education  assumes  a  brain,  if  not  deficient, 
at  least  less  perfect  than  it  may  ultimately  become. 
It  assumes  a  body  not  yet  come  into  its  full  mea- 
sure of  health  and  strength.  It  assumes  emotions 
not  yet  coherent  and  compelling.  In  a  word,  it  is 
not  defeated  by  the  intrusion  of  human  weakness, 
for  it  assumes  human  weakness  and  immaturity  at 
the  start.  The  process  is  to  take  the  children  as 
they  are,  and  to  bring  about  their  betterment.  Its 
standard  is  high,  but  this  applies  to  the  end  of  the 
process  and  not  to  the  beginning.  No  children  are 
too  dull ;  none  too  incompetent.  This  process,  too, 
is  very  particular,  —  it  is  particular  to  include  all. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  organic  education  is 
the  process  of  democracy,  the  process  of  minister- 
ing to  the  whole  people,  and  about  it  centre  the 
same  hope  and  promise  which  centre  about  true 
democracy. 


116  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  cultivation  of  the  senses  means,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  the  cultivation  of  the  brain ;  and  when 
this  sense  culture  is  undertaken  for  purely  human 
and  educational  ends,  it  is  planned  throughout 
to  realize  the  most  complete  brain  culture  pos- 
sible. This  requires  large  skill.  To  make  sure  of 
the  motive  power,  the  emotional  impulse,  the  work 
must  appeal  to  the  interest  and  love  of  the  chil- 
dren. As  far  as  possible,  it  must  be  self-directed 
and  spontaneous  and  joyful.  There  must  be  an 
element  of  choice  in  it.  Everything  we  do  must 
be  in  harmony  with  our  initial  creed  of  the  unity 
of  man.  We  cannot  cultivate  the  senses  without 
at  the  same  moment  cultivating  the  emotions  and 
the  intellect.  Any  attempt  to  separate  our  work, 
to  cultivate  the  heart  or  the  mind  or  the  body 
quite  alone,  is  doomed  to  failure,  for  the  organism 
does  not  so  act.  In  the  specific  work  of  cultivate 
ing  the  senses,  this  unity  of  action  must  always  be 
borne  in  mind.  And  to  be  successful,  we  must  be 
very  specific.  We  must  be  willing  to  deal  with 
every  detail  of  daily  life,  with  food  and  drink  and 
dress,  with  sleep  and  baths  and  exercise,  with  read- 
ing and  companionships  and  amusement,  above  all 
with  the  flood  tide  of  the  emotions.  Upon  these 
details,  however  homely,  health  and  power  de- 
pend. 

In  the  greater  part  of  our  present  thought  and 
practice,  chaos  prevails.  There  is  a  painful  disre- 
gard of  cause  and  effect,  and  this  not  alone  among 
the  ignorant  classes,  but  as  well  among  those  who 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  117 

affect  culture.  It  is  either  excess  or  deficiency. 
We  commonly  show  excess  in  food  and  stimulat- 
ing drinks,  in  dress  and  company.  We  show  de- 
ficiency in  exercise,  sleep,  and  fresh  air,  in  baths 
and  amusement  and  affection.  The  very  first  step 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  senses  is  the  establish- 
ment of  health  through  the  rationalizing  of  these 
homely  details  of  the  daily  life. 

It  ought  to  be  easy  to  correct  excess ;  the  pro- 
cess of  cutting  off  is  so  very  simple.  But  here  the 
force  of  custom  and  our  own  lack  of  sturdiness 
come  in  and  make  the  process  difficult.  American 
school  children  have  a  large  amount  of  nervous 
activity,  but  they  lack  poise  and  vigor.  They  have 
not  enough  good  red  blood,  and  this  comes  about 
from  lack  of  nourishment.  They  are  insufficiently 
nourished  while  at  the  same  time  they  are  overfed. 
A  little  food  and  a  large  power  of  assimilation 
are  what  we  want.  I  notice  with  interest  that 
certain  French  physicians  are  recommending  less 
food,  and  this  is  significant  in  a  nation  whose  spe- 
cial forte  it  is  to  tempt  the  appetite.  Plain,  whole- 
some, nourishing  food,  given  to  a  digestive  appara- 
tus prepared  to  utilize  it,  is  the  first  condition  of 
organic  culture. 

Our  dress  is  another  error  of  excess.  As  a  rule, 
we  wear  too  much  clothing,  too  tight,  too  heavy,  too 
unserviceable.  It  is  a  difficult  matter  to  reform. 
Even  though  we  have  the  testimony  of  persons  who 
wear  comparatively  light  clothing  all  the  year,  who 
do  not  wrap  up  their  throats  and  bandage  their 


118  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

chests  and  otherwise  invite  ill  health,  the  direct 
testimony  that  they  never  have  colds,  that  they 
escape  the  grippe,  that  they  are  seldom  if  ever 
ill,  it  carries  curiously  little  weight  with  it.  Few 
persons  seem  willing  to  pay  the  price  of  this  good 
fortune.  It  is  a  bit  of  cowardice.  You  have  per- 
haps heard  of  the  man  who  was  so  afraid  of  death 
that  he  committed  suicide !  It  appears  almost  that 
these  victims  of  grippe  and  colds  and  the  like  are 
so  afraid  of  a  little  suffering  that  they  endure  great 
suffering.  It  need  not  be  pointed  out  that,  merely 
as  a  matter  of  social  esthetics,  a  cold  in  the  head 
is  quite  an  unsuitable  thing.  Dress  reform  need 
involve  no  loss  of  beauty.  Indeed,  if  it  did  that, 
it  would  cease  to  be  reform.  Children's  dress 
especially  may  be  simple  and  serviceable,  and  still 
eminently  artistic.  Beauty  in  dress,  like  beauty  in 
architecture,  depends  upon  proportion  and  color. 
Ornamentation  is  a  secondary  contribution. 

One  must  also  place  company  under  the  head  of 
excess.  We  are  social  animals,  as  Aristotle  long 
ago  observed,  and  probably  we  were  social  even 
before  we  became  human.  Our  becoming  human 
is  possibly  a  result  of  our  being  social.  In  social 
intercourse,  we  have  in  truth  the  very  medium  for 
human  development.  As  Goethe  says,  "Talent 
forms  itself  in  solitude,  but  character  grows  in  the 
world-stream."  But  the  simple,  sensuous,  pas- 
sionate living  which  constitutes  the  poetry  and  the 
good  of  life  is  not  yet  the  rich  possession  of  the 
adult  world.     The  hope  of  the  future  lies  in  pro- 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  119 

longing  the  period  of  childhood,  and  this  hope  can 
only  be  realized  by  reducing  the  friction  of  life,  by 
simplifying  it,  and  by  giving  tjie  children  long 
stretches  of  quiet  time.  It  is  a  commonplace  of 
observation  that  grown-up  people  are  in  few  mat- 
ters quite  so  altogether  injudicious  as  in  their  treat- 
ment of  children.  They  take  liberties  with  them. 
They  make  them  self-conscious.  They  spoil  or 
neglect,  coax  or  tyrannize.  While  this  remains 
true,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  protect  the  children 
by  keeping  them  in  the  background,  especially  by 
keeping  them  out  of  boarding-houses  and  hotels. 

On  the  side  of  deficiency,  we  have  a  long  list. 
It  ought  to  be  very  easy  to  supply  such  inexpensive 
good  as  exercise  and  sleep  and  fresh  air,  baths  and 
fun  and  love.  But  the  very  habit  which  has  made 
daily  life  deficient  in  these  matters  makes  for  the 
continuance  of  the  deficiency.  The  way  out  is  to 
regard  such  matters  as  essential,  and  to  order  them 
into  each  day's  life.  Exercise,  as  exercise,  aside 
from  the  cultivation  of  some  special  faculty,  is 
rather  a  dull  thing,  and  in  a  world  suffering  visibly 
from  overwork,  it  seems  hardly  a  social  or  a  moral 
thing.  But  the  necessary  home  tasks,  which  are 
full  of  meaning  and  may  be  made  full  of  sentiment, 
might  wholesomely  be  shared  by  the  children,  each 
according  to  his  strength,  and  furnish  the  very 
exercise  needed  for  health.  Abundant  play  in  the 
open  air,  a  little  garden  of  one's  own,  sleeping 
rooms  with  wide  open  windows,  a  house  full  of  sun- 
shine and  fresh  air,  —  these  things  are  all  attain^ 


120  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

able  as  soon  as  they  come  to  be  regarded  as  essen* 
tial.  The  habit  of  scant  sleep  is  a  commercial  one. 
We  want  to  make  all  we  can  out  of  the  days,  for- 
getful that  the  real  value  lies  in  their  quality.  If 
we  believed  practically  in  immortality,  we  should 
perhaps  be  willing  to  go  to  bed  earlier.  When 
Emerson  visited  California  a  few  years  before  his 
death,  he  traveled  with  such  superb  leisure  that 
people  said  of  him  that  he  seemed  truly  to  believe 
in  a  future  life.  In  most  localities  in  America, 
water  is  an  abundant  luxury,  but  its  use  for  bathing 
purposes  is  much  more  restricted  than  it  ought  to  be, 
much  more  so  than  we  people  who  have  one  or  two 
baths  a  day  are  apt  to  suppose.  One  of  the  ironies 
of  our  present  educational  illusion  is  the  purely 
theoretical  use  made  of  the  study  of  physiology. 
The  little  books  contain  full  information  in  regard 
to  the  advantages  of  frequent  bathing,  and  even  go 
into  homely  details  about  the  freedom  of  the  pores 
of  the  skin  from  effete  matter  as  being  one  of  the 
conditions  of  good  health ;  but  not  one  teacher  in  a 
hundred  inquires  whether  these  injunctions  are 
carried  out.  Now,  to  an  idealist,  quite  given  over 
to  a  belief  in  cause  and  effect,  it  would  seem  wiser 
to  practice  hygiene  than  to  preach  it.  In  Switzer- 
land, they  are  introducing  baths  into  some  of  the 
newer  schoolhouses.  One  practical  difficulty  is  the 
expense  or  even  absence  of  hot  water  in  the  meaner 
city  tenements,  and  in  the  majority  of  village  and 
country  cottages,  but  then  cold  water  is  far  better. 
It  is  always  obtainable,  and  it  certainly  produces  a 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  121 

sturdier  physique  and  gives  a  greater  immunity 
from  colds.  If  the  habit  of  cold  baths  be  started 
in  summer,  it  may  safely  be  carried  through  the 
year. 

To  be  alive  is  essentially  amusing.  Life  is 
vastly  entertaining  if  one  take  it  in  the  right 
spirit ;  it  is  much  better  than  the  play,  for  one  has 
the  added  fun  of  taking  a  part.  And  then,  too, 
the  drama  unfolds  much  more  logically  than  the 
majority  of  those  offered  at  the  playhouse.  Even 
the  homely  tasks  are  fvdl  of  fun  if  one  so  elect. 
Formal  amusements  are  a  little  like  formal  exer- 
cise; they  lack  the  snap  and  sincerity  of  the 
natural  and  spontaneous  article.  Once  catch  the 
forced  smile,  once  guess  the  heavy  heart,  and 
the  thing  seems  dull  or  even  pitiful.  Moreover,  it 
is  sandwiched  in  between  two  inconveniences,— 
the  getting  ready  and  the  getting  home.  And  yet 
we  need  more  amusement,  children  and  grown-up 
people  alike,  but  an  amusement  scattered  through- 
out the  day  and  made  genuine  and  simple  and 
joyous.  The  connection  between  health  and  hap- 
piness is  more  than  one  of  good  wishes.  The 
happiness  is  essential  to  the  health.  Misery  of 
spirit  induces  a  long  chain  of  physical  ills.  Thfr 
best  imaginable  tonic  is  an  overflowing  heart. 

This  insistence  upon  good  health  is  imperative. 
Two  things  only  pass  to  the  brain,  blood  and  sen- 
sory nerve  impulse.  An  anemic  brain  can  make 
little  use  of  the  best  arranged  sensory  experience. 
Good  health  is  the  first  and  absolute  condition  foi 


ISB  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

furthering  that  impulse  towards  perfection  which  is 
the  heart  of  the  social  purpose.  When  we  realize 
this,  the  careful  mother  will  say :  "  My  child  seems 
ill ;  I  must  send  him  to  school ;  "  for  the  school,  the 
institution  whose  peculiar  province  it  is  to  carry  on 
the  educational  process  and  realize  the  growing 
perfection  of  the  social  purpose,  will  stand  for 
health  and  vigor  and  life.  What  does  the  careful 
mother  say  now  ?  She  says  the  very  opposite : 
*'  My  child  is  quite  ill ;  the  doctor  says  I  must  take 
him  out  of  school."  Does  this  not  seem  to  you  a 
shocking  accusation,  quite  as  shocking  as  the  pro- 
clamation of  ineffectiveness  on  the  part  of  those 
very  particular  schools  which  boast  the  number  of 
students  they  have  been  unable  to  handle  success- 
fully ?  What  are  we  dreaming  about,  what  fetish 
of  false  culture  are  we  all  worshiping,  when  we 
hear  with  mild  regret  that  the  schools  are  crippling 
our  children,  and  when  we  do  not  rise  up  and  stop 
the  harm?  It  is  as  if  a  shepherd  misled  his  own 
flock,  or  a  priest  beguiled  his  own  people  into  evil. 

The  explanation  is  simple. 

Education  is  not  yet  conceived  by  the  majority 
as  a  redeeming  and  saving  process,  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  organism ;  and  lack  of  health  is  still 
regarded  by  the  majority  as  a  mysterious  dispensa- 
tion, rather  than  as  a  result  of  definite  and  control- 
lable causes.  When  one  comes  to  look  upon  health 
as  simply  a  mark  of  intelligence,  as  a  private  duty 
and  a  public  duty,  as  indeed  an  essential  part  of 
the  moral  life,  and  when  one  comes  to  regard  ill- 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  1^ 

riess  as  an  immoral  and  quite  unpermissible  thing, 
one  has  taken  an  important  step  in  that  process  of 
education  which  proceeds  along  the  line  of  cause 
and  effect.  With  strong,  beautiful  bodies  and  good 
red  blood,  one  may  start  hopefully  upon  the  cul- 
ture of  the  senses,  the  seeing  and  hearing  and 
touching  and  tasting  and  smelling.  The  good 
health  of  the  body  means  the  integrity  of  the  sense 
organs,  the  efficiency  of  the  neural  processes,  the 
soundness  of  the  brain  tissue.  The  real  work  of 
Bense  culture  then  becomes  a  process  of  mental  dis- 
cipline. It  is  a  question  of  exercising  the  functions 
and  enlarging  the  intellectual  discrimination.  It  is 
practically  the  perfecting  of  the  organism,  making 
it  more  open  to  full  and  accurate  sense  impres- 
sions and  more  skillful  in  combining  them  into  a 
magnificent  panorama  of  life. 

It  is  particularly  to  be  observed  that  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  senses  does  not  mean  simply  placing 
the  healthy,  human  animal  in  the  face  of  a  rich 
phenomenal  world,  and  letting  this  world  make 
such  an  impression  as  it  will.  So  negative  a  pro- 
cess would  bring  only  limited  good.  It  is  true,  I 
think,  that  men  who  spend  the  greater  part  of 
their  lives  outdoors,  foresters  and  husbandmen, 
sailors  and  fishermen,  have  a  sounder  intelligence 
than  those  who  submit  themselves  to  the  monotony 
of  factory  work ;  but  the  office  of  education  must 
be  more  positive  than  this.  There  must  be  a 
systematic  endeavor  to  enlarge  sense  experience 
along  its  quantitative  side.    Every  impression  must 


124  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

be  followed  by  some  action,  something  by  which 
the  impression  will  be  gauged  and  measured  and 
tested  and  chastened.  Every  sense  impression 
means  a  sensory  nerve  current  setting  in  towards 
the  brain,  then  a  process  of  intellection,  and  finally 
an  outgoing  discharge  along  a  motor  nerve.  To 
translate  the  incoming  nerve  current  into  fine  ac- 
tion is  to  cultivate  the  senses.  If  the  action  be 
measured,  that  is,  quantitative,  the  intellection  is 
moi*e  pronounced  and  intense,  and  consequently 
the  mental  culture  is  the  greater.  This  makes  the 
difference  between  educational  hand-work  and  mere 
play  with  tools. 

In  the  training  of  the  eye,  for  example,  we  must 
have  the  exercise  of  untiring  attention  and  compari- 
son. If  the  judgment  to  be  cultivated  is  that  of 
distance,  each  space  impression  must  be  compared 
with  other  space  impressions,  and  so  eventually 
translated  into  terms  of  motor  effort.  The  energy 
put  forth  in  covering  a  given  distance  or  reach- 
ing a  given  thing  becomes  the  yard-stick  for  subse- 
quent measurement.  If  the  concern  be  for  form 
and  proportion,  there  must  be  constant  comparison 
of  form  with  form,  and  the  measurement  given  in 
terms  of  pleasurable  feeling.  When  color  is  in- 
cluded, the  contrasts  and  comparisons  are  innumer- 
able. If  only  light  and  shade  are  under  considera- 
tion, the  attention  is  concentrated  on  these  solely, 
and  all  other  elements  are  excluded.  The  train- 
ing of  the  eye  is  forced  upon  us  by  the  very  neces- 
sities and  circumstances  of  life,  but  only  to  the 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  125 

4»xtent  of  making  the  eye  a  rough  convenience. 
The  seeing  eye  differs  from  the  uncultivated  eye 
almost  in  kind.  You  may  remember  how  long  it 
took  you  to  find  out  that  the  shadow  of  a  tree 
trunk  on  the  snow  is  blue  and  not  black,  and 
more  likely  some  one  else  pointed  it  out  to  you. 
You  may  remember  the  first  time  you  ever  saw 
green  in  the  sky,  the  first  time  you  realized  that 
color  is  not  absolute,  but  merely  relative.  You 
may  remember  the  first  time  you  caught  the  feel- 
ing expressed  in  a  well-designed  building,  and  the 
revelation  which  a  sense  of  proportion  brings. 

If  we  grant  this  great  outer  world  an  objective 
and  independent  existence,  then  clearly,  human 
eyes  have  different  powers  of  seeing,  and  the  dif- 
ferences are  spiritual,  are  the  result  of  intellectual 
growth  and  culture.  If  it  be  essentially  a  subjec- 
tive world,  as  we  idealists  suppose  it  to  be,  the  case 
is  precisely  the  same.  The  unfolding  mind  has  an 
increasing  wealth  of  experience,  and  its  projection, 
the  outer  world,  is  one  of  increasing  interest  and 
beauty. 

With  these  great  possibilities  within  grasp,  it 
seems  a  criminal  thing  to  substitute  outer  facts,  — 
words,  —  the  report  of  others,  —  the  dead  thing, 
—  for  the  living  organic  reality. 

The  practical  process  of  cultivating  the  eye  is  not 
difficult.  It  needs  the  seeing  eye  in  the  teacher, 
and  this  is  not  always  a  part  of  the  curriculum 
of  the  normal  school.  After  that  it  needs  simply 
the  enlargement  of  the  experience  of  the  children 


126  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

along  lines  of  observation  and  experiment,  work 
which  will  enlist  their  interest  and  their  self- 
prompted  activity. 

In  the  cultivation  of  the  sense  of  touch,  we  have 
a  very  similar  course  to  pursue.  The  special  organ 
of  touch,  the  hand,  is  ever  in  contact  with  its 
opportunity,  but  nothing  comes  of  it  unless  the 
will  work  itself  out  through  the  hand.  It  is  a 
wonderfully  delicate  organ,  and  capable  of  great 
cunning,  but  it  must  be  developed  by  intelligent 
exercise.  The  motor  nerves  to  set  this  piece  of 
mechanism  into  action  must  be  strengthened  and 
vivified.  The  brain  tissue  back  of  it  must  be 
drilled  to  efficient  command.  Above  all,  the  hand 
must  be  taught  to  carry  out  the  ex,act  purposes  of 
the  brain,  an  obedience  which  wiU  be  forthcoming 
just  as  soon  as  the  brain  is  itself  exact  in  its  opera- 
tions. The  poor  workman  is  the  one  whose  inner 
panorama  is  obscured  by  clouds  and  mists.  The 
divine  craftsman  is  clairvoyant. 

The  eye  and  ear  and  hand  are  made  the  objects 
of  special  training  in  our  art  academies  and  con- 
servatories and  manual  training  schools ;  and  more 
and  more,  as  the  doctrine  of  human  wealth  pene- 
trates the  social  consciousness,  is  this  special  train- 
ing being  introduced  into  the  educational  process 
of  childhood.  The  senses  of  taste  and  smell  are 
also  of  large  importance  in  the  successful  conduct 
of  life,  but  they  have  never,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
been  made  the  objects  of  educational  care.  They 
might  well  be,  for  they  stand  in  intimate  relation 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  127 

to  the  life-drama.  There  is  a  particularly  close 
connection  between  the  sense  of  smell  and  the 
processes  of  memory,  a  connection  which  Darwin 
pointed  out  many  years  ago.  A  suddenly  per- 
ceived and  once  familiar  odor  has  power  to  recall 
a  person,  a  situation,  a  locality,  with  a  vividness 
which  few  other  reminders  possess.  The  connec- 
tion of  taste  and  smell  is  so  close  as  to  be  one  of 
dependence.  It  is  well  known  that  a  loss  of  the 
sense  of  smell  means  a  loss  of  taste,  and  all  the 
curtailment  of  discrimination  and  pleasure  which 
such  a  loss  involves.  A  sense  of  smell  is  valuable 
also  as  an  index  of  the  condition  of  the  mucous 
membrane,  and  any  impairment  demands  immedi- 
ate attention.  In  this  case  the  chain  of  disaster 
is  very  direct.  The  loss  of  taste  following  upon 
that  of  smell  means  a  diminution  of  appetite,  and 
a  feeble  appetite  is  not  consistent  with  robust 
health.  Nor  does  the  chain  end  here.  The  same 
diseased  condition  of  the  membrane,  which  brings 
loss  of  smell  and  taste,  is  very  prone  to  bring 
about  an  impairment  of  hearing.  Dullness  of  hear- 
ing is  more  frequently  caused  by  catarrh  of  the 
eustachian  tube  than  by  anything  else.  The  blunt- 
ing of  these  three  senses  —  hearing,  taste,  and 
smell  —  means  a  shrinkage  of  the  personal  uni- 
verse, such  as  no  parent  or  teacher  ought  willingly 
to  contemplate.  Furthermore,  when  the  organs 
are  in  a  state  of  health,  the  training  of  both  taste 
and  smell  to  quantitative  judgments  involves  a 
mental  training  which  is  quite  worth  while. 


128  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  carrying  out  of  organic  education  means 
an  enlargement  of  the  personal  universe,  an  in- 
s.  rease  in  the  dimensions  of  life,  an  expansion  of 
personal  control  and  power.  In  the  whole  educa- 
tional process  I  know  of  nothing  more  interesting 
and  more  touching  than  to  watch  this  gi'owth,  the 
increased  power  of  the  accomplished  organism. 
The  little  craftsmen  who  are  just  beginning  their 
hand-work  are  so  manifestly  helpless.  It  is  almost 
pitiful  to  see  the  lack  of  coordination  among  their 
faculties,  the  absence  of  any  real  control  over  the 
organism.  Where  there  is  anything  like  normal 
material  to  work  upon,  the  change  is  marvelous. 
Control  takes  the  place  of  lack  of  control;  slug- 
gishness gives  place  to  alertness,  awkwardness  to 
dexterity.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  work 
of  human  regeneration  is  going  on  from  day  to 
day  and  before  one's  very  eyes.  In  this  world  of 
enlarging  personality,  one  cannot  help  being  pro- 
foundly sorry  for  that  other  world  which  elects 
idleness. 

Where  hand-work  has  been  employed  for  the  bet- 
terment of  deficient  human  material,  —  the  feeble- 
minded and  the  criminal,  —  the  change  seems  even 
more  marvelous.  The  personal  statements  of  the 
superintendents  of  the  home  at  Elwyn,  Pennsylva- 
nia, and  of  the  reformatory  at  Elmira,  New  York, 
Lnd  the  published  reports  of  those  institutions, 
show  that  in  the  one,  manual  training  is  most 
highly  valued  as  a  mental  restorative,  and  in  the 
other,  as  a  moral  tonic. 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  129 

The  significant  element  in  the  transformation 
wrought  by  organic  education  is  that  it  has  taken 
place  essentially  in  the  brain  itself.  The  clumsy 
people  of  the  world,  those  who  cannot  seem  to  man- 
age their  person  and  make  use  of  their  senses,  show 
a  similar  clumsiness  in  their  mental  operations. 
After  some  experience  in  observing  the  connection 
between  mental  power  and  bodily  performance, 
one  comes  to  mistrust  the  mental  capacity  of  those 
who  are  visibly  not  in  control  of  their  own  organ- 
isms. We  all  know  what  curious  physical  awkward- 
ness results  from  embarrassment.  The  very  word 
"clever"  means  quick.  If  we  search  the  whole 
vocabulary  of  commendation,  one  that  has  come 
down  to  us  polished  by  the  wear  of  centuries,  we 
find  a  significant  connection  between  mental  states 
and  bodily  acts.  The  clever  people  are  the  people 
in  bodily  command ;  men  and  women  of  marvelous 
quickness  of  action ;  happy  possessors  of  that  ad- 
mirable tool  by  which  the  human  spirit  carries  out 
its  admirable  purposes,  an  accomplished,  developed 
organism.  Every  one  can  recall  such  cases  in  life 
and  in  literature.  These  favorite  children  of  for- 
tune surely  point  the  way  to  the  realization  of  the 
social  good. 

All  this  is  very  obvious,  and  yet  one  may  venture 
to  repeat  these  obvious  things  because  in  our  edu- 
cational process  we  are  not  yet  acting  upon  them. 
We  are  not  yet  strengthening  the  source  of  power, 
the  human  heart ;  we  are  not  yet  furnishing  it  with 
nn  efficient  tool,  an  accomplished  organism.     Our 


ttd  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

quest  for  perfection  is  not  a  very  earnest  one,  is 
indeed  a  mere  bit  of  idle  sentimentality  if  we  neg- 
lect these  very  obvious  matters  of  the  law. 

And  what  I  have  to  say  in  concluding  this  chap- 
ter seems  to  me  still  more  obvious.  We  care  for 
perfection  in  our  ideal  pursuits,  —  in  art,  in  litera- 
ture, in  music,  —  and  we  admit  that  we  care.  We 
want  the  greatest  possible  charm  and  delight  and 
beauty  and  excellence  and  power.  Sculpture  creates 
strong-limbed  men  and  noble  women  and  beautiful 
children,  people  of  power.  Architecture  works 
for  subtle  proportion  and  fine  suitableness,  for  the 
things  of  excellence.  Painting  makes  permanent 
the  magnificent  color  and  pure  line  of  our  dreams 
of  beauty.  Literature  has  for  its  avowed  purpose 
the  production  of  those  perfect  art  forms  and  that 
rich  imagery  and  that  genuine  emotion  which  con- 
stitute human  delight.  And,  finally,  music  realizes 
its  high  office  in  speaking  most  directly  and  most 
touchingly  to  the  human  spirit.  Now,  these  are 
not  idle  words.  They  are  not  pretty  playthings 
for  the  imagination  to  dwell  lightly  upon  and  then 
pass  on  to  the  solemn  affairs  of  trade  and  busi- 
ness. On  the  contrary,  they  represent  that  more 
permanent  achievement  by  which  the  men  of  a 
later  time  judge  whether  the  age  has  been  worthy 
or  unworthy.  It  is  the  record  of  the  best  that  we 
have  thought  and  done.  But  art  work  can  only  be 
created  by  the  artist,  poems  by  the  poet,  symphonies 
by  the  musician.  The  solemn  affairs  of  trade  and 
business,  about  which  a  part  of  the  world  speaks 


ORGANIC  EDUCATION  131 

quite  reverently  and  impressively,  have  no  genuine 
contribution  to  make  toward  the  abiding  wealth  of 
the  world.  This  wealth  is  human.  It  consists  of 
beautiful  men  and  beautiful  women  and  beautiful 
children.  The  practical  concern  of  life  is  with 
human  charm  and  human  delight  and  human 
beauty  and  human  excellence  and  human  power. 
When  we  save  the  human  soul,  redeem  it  from 
commercialism  and  incompleteness  and  organic 
defect  and  all  other  uncleanness,  then  all  else  that 
is  good  shall  be  added  unto  it.  And  the  monu- 
ment of  this  rich  life  will  be  an  art  and  literature 
and  music  which  will  proclaim  its  own  excellence. 
But  one  must  begin  at  the  human  end,  with  the 
perfecting  of  the  human  organism. 


CHAPTER  V 

CAUSE  AND  EFFECT 

It  is  the  defect  of  all  voluminous  writers  that 
they  mix  considerable  chaff  with  their  wheat.  Men 
like  Huskin,  who  write  with  too  great  ease,  or  like 
Spencer,  who  write  with  too  great  industry,  inevi- 
tably say  things  both  true  and  false.  But  their 
very  wealth  of  expression  makes  their  words  woith 
winnowing.  That  Huskin  is  at  times  extreme,  and 
Spencer  sometimes  mistaken,  does  not  detract  from 
the  immense  value  of  the  best  of  their  utterance. 
In  such  instances  one  may  profitably  recall  the 
shrewd  remark  of  Leibnitz,  "  Show  me  a  man 
who  has  never  made  a  mistake,  and  I  will  show  you 
a  man  who  has  never  done  anything."  And  the 
case  of  Ernest  Renan  comes  to  mind,  a  scholar  who 
has  amply  atoned  for  any  minor  errors  in  his  ori- 
entalism by  the  magnificent  sweep  and  vigor  of  his 
religious  conceptions.  One  can  usually  trace  out 
the  line  of  unreliability.  It  is  the  result  of  some 
personal  defect,  some  unfortunate  and  embittering 
incident,  some  too  limited  experience. 

The  defect  in  Ruskin  is  due  to  the  cumulative 
nature  of  his  emotions.  He  becomes  carried  away 
by  the  force  of  his  own  feelings.     He  ends  in 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  133 

extremes.  Yet  he  may  be  read  with  the  utmost 
profit,  if  we  take  seriously  the  wise  and  beautiful 
things  he  has  to  say  about  life  and  art,  and  stop 
quite  short  when  we  detect  the  signs  of  intemper- 
ance. 

The  defect  in  Spencer  comes  from  his  unsocial 
life,  a  defect  which  shows  itself  in  the  wasteful 
controversies  he  has  indulged  in,  in  his  false  view 
of  the  position  of  women,  and  in  much  of  his 
social  theory  generally.  Yet  he  is  most  helpful, 
"  our  great  philosopher,"  as  Darwin  called  him,  and 
his  service  has  consisted  not  in  any  very  original 
contribution  to  human  knowledge,  but  rather  in 
the  clear  and  orderly  way  in  which  he  has  stated 
and  illumined  the  fundamental  things  in  the  sepa- 
rate sciences,  and  brought  them  into  close  touch 
with  one  another. 

Now,  as  the  result  of  this  wide  analysis  and 
synthesis,  Mr.  Spencer  has  been  led  to  say  what 
seems  to  me  a  very  true  thing  indeed,  that  the 
intellectual  progress  of  a  people,  or  of  an  indi- 
vidual, is  by  nothing  so  clearly  measured  as  by 
the  hold  which  they  have  upon  the  principle  of 
causation. 

I  To  believe  rigidly  in  cause  and  effect  is  to  be  a 
philosopher.  To  act  rigidly  upon  the  belief  is  to 
be  an  artist. 

As  an  article  of  intellectual  belief,  none  of  us 
deny  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect.  On  the 
contrary,  we  subscribe  to  it  most  heartily,  and  we 
have  a  very  disparaging  opinion  of  those  who  do 


134  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

not  show  an  equal  loyalty.  And  yet  I  have  ven- 
tured to  name  philosophers  those  who  rigidly  be- 
lieve in  it. 

As  a  practical  people,  we  all  act  upon  the  prin- 
ciple of  cause  and  efiFect,  —  more  or  less,  —  and 
again  we  have  a  very  disparaging  opinion  of  the 
poor  souls  who  fail  in  this  particular.  Yet  I  have 
ventured  to  name  artists  those  who  really  do  act 
upon  it. 

There  is  apparently  some  discrepancy  in  both 
our  belief  and  our  action.  The  heart  of  the 
trouble  is  that  in  neither  are  we  very  thorough- 
going. I  am  afraid  that  we  are  all  very  lazy. 
It  is  apparently  easier  not  to  think  than  to  think. 
As  Emerson  put  it,  "  Men  are  as  lazy  as  they  dare 
to  be."  This  sluggish  way  of  taking  life,  and 
failing  to  act  out  our  beliefs,  has  an  organic  cause. 
It  is  due  to  the  poor  tissue  of  which  most  of  us  are 
made,  to  the  lack  of  circulation,  to  the  dead  and 
alive  organism.  It  is  a  part  of  the  illness  and 
disease  which  come  from  pursuing  things  instead 
of  pursuing  the  major  human  ends.  Such  laziness 
leads  to  indefiniteness.  When  lucidity  is  pressed 
upon  us  by  some  sharp,  clear-cut  questioning,  we 
straighten  up  and  make  defensible  answers.  For 
the  moment,  we  do  believe  in  cause  and  effect,  and 
are  momentarily  philosophers.  But  the  philosophy 
soon  fades,  and  we  pass  into  our  accustomed  vague- 
ness. In  this  region  of  '  fuzzy '  thinking  in  which 
we  too  commonly  live,  we  hold  half  a  dozen  con- 
tradictory beliefs  and  never  know  it.     We  believe 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  185 

in  causation  as  a  direct  article  of  the  intellectual 
creed,  but  we  also  believe  in  a  lot  of  other  things 
which  are  an  equally  direct  denial.  When  the 
questions  grow  at  all  subtle,  and  particularly  when 
we  knock  up  against  old  traditions  and  conventions 
and  Mrs.  Grundy  and  the  rest  of  the  obstruction- 
ists, we  go  very  lamely  indeed,  and  end  by  being 
anything  but  philosophers. 

This  confusion  is  reflected  in  our  action.  In 
very  obvious  things  we  are  causationists.  If  we 
want  our  corn  to  grow  we  put  fertilizer  in  each 
hill.  If  we  want  to  be  warm,  we  show  our  respect 
for  the  wood  pile  and  the  coal  bin.  If  we  are 
setting  out  on  a  journey,  we  ordinarily  inquire  the 
road.  If  we  build  a  house,  we  look  to  the  strength 
of  our  material.  In  these  very  obvious  operations 
we  have  grown  quite  practical.  When  it  comes  to 
disposing  of  the  corn,  and  using  the  warmth,  and 
dignifying  the  journey,  and  glorifying  the  house,  we 
are  much  less  successful.  We  are  not  a  very  subtle 
people.  We  are  much  more  given  to  action  than 
we.  are  to  thought.  Consequently,  we  show  our 
essential  want  of  practicality  just  as  soon  as  our 
belief  or  our  action  touches  the  domain  of  those 
problems  which  involve  the  more  subtle  elements. 
Now,  education  is  one  of  those  practical  processes 
in  which  the  principle  of  cause  and  efEect  is  very 
much  needed  in  both  our  creed  and  our  practice. 
But  it  is  also  a  process  in  which  our  inaptitude  for 
subtle  belief  and  subtle  action  most  strenuously 
shows  itself.     Our  current  education   is  not  sue* 


136  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

ceeding  in  proportion  to  the  money  and  effort 
which  are  being  put  into  it,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  it  is  not  built  up  on  the  line  of  causation. 
Yet  education,  the  problem  of  problems  at  the 
present  moment,  the  living  end  of  our  philosophy, 
is  a  very  simple  and  natural  process  as  soon  as  one 
imports  into  it  a  thoroughgoing  belief  in  cause 
and  effect,  and  action  which  is  equally  causational. 
It  is  this  necessity,  the  moral  necessity  of  being 
practical,  which  makes  education  only  discussable 
on  the  higher  grounds  of  social  purpose  and  se- 
rious philosophy.  If  one  does  not  know  where  one 
wants  to  go,  there  is  little  chance  of  success  in  de- 
vising a  process  for  getting  there.  The  most  prac- 
tical man  in  the  world  cannot  follow  sealed  orders 
until  the  seal  is  broken.  The  two  conditions  of 
success  in  education  are  a  vivid  realization  of  the 
social  purpose  and  an  equally  vivid  realization  of 
the  practical,  causational  nature  of  the  process  by 
which  it  is  to  be  carried  out. 

We  have  seen  what  the  social  purpose  is.  We 
have  seen  that  it  is  the  production  of  human 
wealth.  Our  belief  in  human  unity  makes  it  quite 
as  explicit  that  the  educational  process  must  be 
organic  in  order  to  create  this  wealth.  These  are 
direct  causational  lines,  and  it  only  remains  for  us 
to  live  up  to  them.  Simple  as  the  process  is,  how- 
ever, we  shall  have  constant  need  of  love  and 
courage,  love  enough  to  keep  the  process  at  all 
times  thoroughly  human,  and  courage  enough  to  be 
true  to  our  own  programme.     Upon  this  love  and 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  ?.37 

Courage  I  insist,  not  as  a  mere  pretty  sentiment, 
but  as  a  condition  to  the  fulfillment  of  that  obliga- 
tion which  presses  upon  all  morally  evolved  per- 
sons, the  obligation  of  making  their  adventures 
succeed.  It  was  maintained  in  the  last  chapter 
that  good  health  is  a  part  of  the  moral  life  of  the 
body,  and  in  the  present  chapter  it  will  be  main- 
tained with  equal  insistence  that  success,  the  wise 
adjustment  of  means  to  ends,  is  'a  part  of  the 
moral  life  of  the  spirit. 

It  would  be  an  easy  matter  to  resist  temptation, 
even  when  spelled  with  the  capital  letter  of  the  old 
homilies,  if  it  always  came  to  us  duly  labeled. 
But  the  trouble  is  that  it  has  a  way  of  coming  in 
the  guise  of  virtue,  and  then  it  is  almost  irresist- 
ible. This  is  particularly  true  in  education.  It  is 
a  process  which  has  enlisted  tremendous  interest 
and  tremendous  good  intention.  Its  operations 
have  all  the  guise  of  virtue.  If  one  stand  aloof 
from  these  attractive  operations  and  decline  to 
lend  a  hand,  one  must  seem  to  others,  and  even  to 
one's  self,  as  rather  a  disagreeable  and  useless 
fellow,  with  a  much  greater  turn  for  finding  motes 
than  for  casting  out  beams.  So  great  is  the  simili- 
tude of  virtue  in  the  best-ordered  of  our  schools 
that  they  constantly  act  as  a  tempter  to  the  would- 
be  reformer.  The  intention  is  so  good,  the  teachers 
are  so  devoted,  the  place  is  so  clean,  the  children 
are  so  clever  and  so  lovable,  that  the  effect  is  to 
create  the  impression  that  we  have  attained  what 
we  have  not  attained.    In  the  face  of  these  tempta- 


138  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

tions,  one  must  be  forever  applying  tbe  causational 
yard-stick,  and  forever  repeating  one's  educational 
catechism,  —  What  is  the  social  purpose  ?  How 
must  the  educational  process  act?  Is  the  philo- 
sophic idea  a  reality?  This  method  of  defense  is 
sure  to  rout  the  enemy.  If  one  find  the  absence 
of  the  great  idea,  the  absence  of  a  distinct  and 
defensible  purpose,  the  absence  of  causational  meth- 
ods, then  one  surely  has  to  deal  with  an  immoral 
and  unsocial  process,  and  an  earnest  man  cannot 
go  in  for  it. 

In  very  truth,  it  seems  to  me  a  greater  social 
Bervice  to  hold  back  from  much  of  our  present 
educational  method,  the  machine  of  official  educa- 
tion, than  to  lend  it  a  hand.  But  one  may  do  this 
with  more  grace  if  one  has  a  definite  plan  to  offer 
as  a  substitute,  and  if  one  is  trying,  however  par- 
tially, to  put  such  a  plan  into  operation.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  present  volume  is  to  suggest  both  a 
definite  way  of  looking  at  the  educational  problem, 
and  an  equally  definite  way  of  solving  it.  Nor  is 
this  solution  entirely  in  the  future.  It  is  discern- 
ible as  the  inner  heart  of  many  an  earnest  con- 
temporary movement.  This  newer  plan  of  educa- 
tion rests  upon  just  this  principle  of  cause  and 
effect.  It  includes  all  children  as  its  propei*  ma- 
terial, and  covers  all  ages  from  birth  to  the  very 
end.  In  its  conception,  the  plan  is  truly  demo- 
cratic, and  in  its  operation  it  is  causational.  In 
deference  to  its  underlying  principle  of  the  unity 
of  man,  it  may  be  designated  as  organic  educa- 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  139 

tion.  The  nearest  approach  to  the  carrying  out  of 
the  programme  of  organic  education  is  to  be  found 
in  our  kindergartens,  our  manual  training  schools, 
our  art  schools,  our  music  schools,  and  our  gym- 
nasiums. These,  in  a  measure,  have  in  mind  the 
social  purpose,  the  sound,  accomplished,  beautiful 
person.  In  a  measure,  they  carry  out  this  purpose 
along  the  lines  of  cause  and  effect  by  wrapping  up 
the  soundness  and  accomplishment  and  beauty  in 
the  very  tissue  and  fibre  of  the  organism  itself. 

There  are  occasional  wise  men  who  decline  the 
reputed  necessaries  of  life,  the  conventional  dis- 
play in  food  and  clothes  and  shelter,  who  limit 
themselves  to  the  real  necessaries,  and  who  take,  as 
their  extra  part,  the  luxuries  of  life,  leisure,  and 
health,  and  happiness.  This  ideal  would  plainly 
be  considered  uneconomic.  According  to  the  cur- 
rent commercial  view  of  life,  consumption  must 
keep  pace  with  production,  or  the  industrial  mill 
stops.  It  is  only  by  getting  people  to  want  a 
whole  lot  of  ugly  and  unnecessary  things  that  the 
profit  hunger  of  our  enormous  productivity  can  be 
even  half  satisfied.  But  it  is  not  enough  that  peo- 
ple should  simply  want  these  things.  They  must 
also  have  the  money  to  pay  for  them.  This  is 
sometimes  lacking,  when  the  machines  have  pro- 
duced more  than  men  can  contemporaneously  con- 
sume or  destroy,  and  wages  must  needs  stop  along 
with  the  over-efficient  machines.  Then  we  have 
the  curious  spectacle  of  hard  times  caused  by  over- 
production, thousands  of  people  made  hungry  and 


140  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

naked  and  houseless,  because  they  have  produced 
too  great  wealth.  It  does  not  quite  sound  like 
cause  and  effect. 

This  pressure  on  consumption  is  sometimes  dain- 
tily called  raising  the  standard  of  living ;  and  this 
benevolently  determines  the  rate  of  wages,  for 
wages,  like  a  mirror,  reflect  the  exact  cost  of  what 
the  average  workman  thinks  he  must  eat  and  drink 
and  wear  and  have.  And  so  the  passing  days  are 
desecrated,  useless  toil  producing  useless  things,  — 
implements  of  war,  patent  medicines,  advertising 
novelties,  Saturday  night  shoes,  velveteens,  and 
bangles.  And  the  working  people,  with  their  great 
possibilities  of  achievement,  the  very  bulk  of  the 
world's  population,  have  produced  nothing  admir- 
able, no  monument  of  loving  workmanship,  and 
no  great  show  of  character.  The  simple  plan  of 
making  production  as  great  as  wholesomely  may  be, 
and  consumption  as  small  as  wholesomely  may  be, 
and  then  devoting  the  large  spare  time  to  nobler 
human  uses,  this  plan  has  not  been  tried,  and  is 
not  possible  so  long  as  the  world's  industry  is  run 
on  the  motive  of  profit  and  not  on  the  motive  of 
human  development  and  human  wealth.  It  is  this 
constant  defeating  of  the  high  purposes  of  life  by 
our  present  unsocial  industrialism  which  forces  an 
educator  to  take  definite  position  on  social  ques- 
tions, even  had  he  not  been  forced  to  it  by  the 
initial,  logical  necessity  of  formulating  the  social 
purpose  to  be  carried  out  by  his  educational  pro« 
cess. 


I 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  141 

The  plan  of  organic  education  is  much  like  the 
plan  of  these  occasional  wise  men  who  decline 
the  reputed  necessaries  of  life,  and  insist  upon 
the  true  luxuries.  It  cuts  out  as  much  of  the  use- 
less as  possible.  It  does  not  store  up  heterogene- 
ous facts  with  an  assiduity  which  would  make  it 
seem  as  if  books  and  libraries  were  not  safe  store- 
houses for  them.  It  is  not  commercial  and  pru- 
dential. It  makes  no  explicit  preparation  for  the 
future.  It  dispenses  with  many  of  the  present 
reputed  necessaries  of  education,  and  frankly  in- 
sists upon  what  is  commonly  considered  a  luxury, 
upon  cidture,  the  study  and  pursuit  of  perfection. 
It  dares  to  set  up  and  to  defend  against  all  comers 
the  simple  thesis  that  the  one  object  in  life  worthy 
of  serious  pursuit  is  human  strength  and  beauty 
and  accomplishment  and  goodness.  It  dares  to 
set  this  up  for  boys  as  well  as  for  girls,  for  poor 
people  as  well  as  for  rich  people,  for  age  as  well 
as  for  youth.  It  rates  this  human  object  so  high 
that  the  unsocial  pursuit  of  lands  and  houses  and 
stocks  and  gold  becomes  an  open  act  of  sacrilege. 
And  when  this  pursuit  is  carried  out  at  a  human 
cost,  at  the  cost  of  others'  health  and  honor  and 
life,  it  becomes  an  offense  so  grave  as  to  be  a 
blasphemy,  as  to  rank  with  the  unpardonable  sin. 

This  is  a  heresy,  deeper  than  one  at  first  im- 
agines, for  if  we  had  the  love  and  courage  to  live 
up  to  it,  it  would  quite  transfigure  the  earth.  There 
are  signs  in  the  air  that  we  shall  soon  be  living  up 
to  it.    We  are  beginning  in  places  to  do  it  already, 


142  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

here  and  there  in  America  and  in  England  and  in 
those  fortunate  isles  where  it  is  also  believed  as  a 
reality  of  experience  that  the  world  might  be  a 
fair  place  ;  that  its  wealth  is  human,  and  is  made 
up  of  beautiful  men  and  beautiful  women  and 
beautiful  children,  and  of  nothing  less  superb  than 
this.  It  is  a  deep  heresy,  for  if  one  really  accepted 
it  and  lived  up  to  it  along  the  lines  of  cause  and 
effect,  that  is  to  say,  lived  up  to  it  practically,  one 
would  consent  to  no  spending  of  the  days  which 
made  one  poorer  humanly,  however  great  the  wage, 
and  one  would  consent  to  no  such  desecration  for 
the  neighbor. 

There  is  a  dramatic  incident  in  the  reported 
life  of  David  which  I  much  like  to  dwell  upon. 
He  was  fighting  the  Philistines,  after  the  savage 
manner  of  his  time,  and  was  hard  pressed  near  the 
Cave  of  Adullam.  The  day  was  warm,  and  David 
spake  longingly  of  the  pure  cold  water  in  the  well 
at  the  gate  of  his  city  of  Bethlehem.  In  an  in- 
stant three  of  his  men  broke  through  the  ranks  of 
the  Philistines,  drew  water  from  the  well,  and  bare 
the  water  back  to  David.  It  was  a  stirring  thing 
to  do,  noble  service,  bravely  rendered.  And  David 
took  the  water  and  poured  it  out  on  the  ground  as 
an  offering  to  the  Eternal  One.  It  had  been  won 
at  the  risk  of  human  life.  The  cost  was  too  great, 
David  could  not  drink. 

In  modem  life  we  have  not  yet  the  love  and 
courage  to  decline  the  goods  won  at  the  too  great 
cost  of  health  and  honor  and  happiness.     And  this 


I 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  143 

is  the  human  cost  of  miicli  that  is  in  the  market. 
But  to  this  inconvenience,  if  inconvenience  one  is 
pleased  to  call  it,  a  practical  belief  in  human 
wealth  and  in  the  sacredness  of  human  excellence 
brings  us. 

The  kindergarten  and  the  manual  training  school, 
and  the  kindred  institutions  already  mentioned, 
have  this  practical  belief  in  the  surpassing  worth 
of  human  excellence.  In  this  they  are  philosophic. 
They  do  not  always  live  up  to  their  philosophy, 
and  perhaps  the  older  schools  of  art  and  music 
and  gymnastic  do  not  quite  subscribe  to  it  as  the 
issue  of  paramount  importance.  They  still  work 
too  much  as  if  art  were  an  end  in  itself,  apart  from 
the  artist ;  and  music  an  end  in  itself,  regard- 
less of  the  singer ;  and  the  human  body  something 
admirable  untouched  by  the  human  spirit.  But 
art  and  music  and  gymnastic  are  increasingly  tak- 
ing their  place  alongside  of  the  kindergarten  and 
manual  training  as  means  of  culture  rather  than 
as  ends  of  culture,  and  in  this  they  are  being  hu- 
manized. In  all  these  institutions  of  organic  train- 
ing we  find,  too,  the  practical  attempt  to  carry  the 
principle  of  cause  and  effect  into  definite  educa- 
tional action,  and  in  this  they  are  artistic.  Each 
one  of  these  schools  has  made  its  distinct  contribu- 
tion. In  each  one  we  shall  find  some  strength  and 
some  weakness.  In  attempting  to  develop  a  more 
complete  scheme  of  education,  it  will  evidently  be 
the  beginning  of  wisdom  to  examine  very  carefully 
into  these  older  schemes  of  organic  culture,  so  that 


144  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

we  may  take  advantage  of  their  merit  and  escape 
the  penalty  of  their  defect. 

In  the  kindergarten  we  find  a  supreme  source  of 
strength  in  its  recognition  of  the  source  of  power, 
the  emotional  life,  the  first  full  and  ample  recogni- 
tion anywhere  in  education.  Froebel  is  everywhere 
full  of  it.  He  abounds  in  such  expressions  as 
"  the  inner  impulse,"  "  the  impulse  to  play,"  "  self- 
activity,"  and  the  like.  They  were  such  realities 
to  him  that,  in  the  true  artist-spirit  of  adjusting 
means  to  ends,  he  went  to  work  to  devise  a  system 
of  child  education  which  should  be  built  up  on  the 
emotional  life.  The  kindergarten  is  the  first  scheme 
of  child  culture  which  is  truly  psychological.  All 
others  have  been  founded  more  or  less  upon  the 
idea  of  compulsion,  of  force,  and  have  grown  out 
of  a  totally  different  philosophy  of  life.  Our 
own  gentle  ancestors,  who  believed,  it  may  be  re- 
membered, that  the  sins  to  which  children  are 
especially  prone  are  ungodliness,  profaneness,  and 
self-sufficiency,  must  have  sought,  if  they  were  at 
all  consistent,  to  cure  such  serious  defects  by 
measures  equally  serious.  Education  meant  to 
them,  as  it  does  still  to  many  of  their  descendants, 
,  and  to  all  believers  in  the  cheerless  doctrine  of 
V  /  total  depravity  and  the  old  Adam,  a  system  of  un- 
tiring and  thoroughgoing  repression.  In  a  garden 
more  thickly  planted  with  tares  than  with  wheat, 
they  were  not  willing,  like  the  good  husbandman 
in  the  parable,  to  let  both  come  to  the  harvest,  but 
were  forever  trying  to  defeat  the  enemy,  and,  as  a 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  145 

result,  they  pulled  up  much  of  the  wheat.  Per- 
haps the  best  chapters  in  our  colonial  history  are 
those  delightful  ones  which  tell  of  the  triumph 
of  practice  over  theory.  One  might  almost  say 
that  the  main  virtue  of  the  Puritans  was  their 
failure  to  be  consistent.  But  Froebel  had  the 
seeing  eye.  He  saw  the  unity  of  man,  and  every- 
where insists  upon  its  major  importance.  He  saw 
the  source  of  power,  the  inner  impulse,  and  al- 
ways heeded  it.  He  accepted  in  part  the  Socratic 
view  of  vice  and  virtue,  without,  perhaps,  being 
quite  conscious  of  his  acceptance  or  of  the  origin 
of  the  view.  It  is  indeed  marvelous  that  one 
man,  quite  by  himself,  should  have  worked  out  so 
much  of  vital  truth  in  education.  He  may  well  bo 
called  the  Emancipator  of  Childhood.  Froebel's 
system  grew  out  of  his  experience.  He  was  not  a 
closet  philosopher,  an  astronomer  who  had  never 
seen  the  stars.  He  noticed  the  children  at  their 
play,  noticed  its  spontaneity,  noticed  the  charming 
touch  of  sentiment  and  fancy  which  they  import 
into  all  their  self-devised  activities.  Many,  doubt- 
less, had  noticed  these  same  things  before,  and  the 
large  good  which  came  out  of  them  ;  but  apparently 
no  one  had  been  practical  enough  or  interested 
enough  to  seize  upon  this  play  impulse  as  a  cause, 
and  make  still  larger  and  more  helpful  results  flow 
out  of  it.  The  ungainly,  benignant  figure,  watch- 
ing the  children  at  their  play,  believing  rigidly  in 
cause  and  effect,  a  philosopher,  acting  rigidly  on  the 
principle  of  cause  and  effect,  an  artist,  doubtless 


146  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

seemed  to  his  day  and  generation  a  sorry  sort  of 
dreamer,  and  not  very  likely  to  make  any  contribu- 
tion of  moment  to  the  progress  of  the  hour.  But 
it  turned  out  that  he  was  the  practical  man,  the 
causationist,  and  they  were  the  false  dreamers.  It 
is  impossible  to  picture  anything  more  genuine  and 
alert  than  children  at  their  play,  and  here,  if  any- 
where, the  sympathetic  observer  ought  to  be  able 
to  get  at  the  secret  of  child  education.  It  seems 
to  me,  then,  the  supreme  source  of  strength  in  the 
kindergarten,  and  the  service  for  which  we  owe  it 
reverence,  that  it  made  education  an  inner  process, 
a  self-activity,  a  redemption,  in  place  of  an  out- 
wardly imposed  discipline  and  repression ;  that  it 
built  its  method  upon  a  conception  of  human 
unity ;  and,  finally,  that  it  carried  out  its  purpose 
through  the  free  play  of  the  inner  impulse.  Prac- 
tically, the  kindergarten  is  a  system  of  sense  cul- 
ture through  the  healthful  play  of  the  emotions.  It 
is  activity  touched  with  sentiment. 

The  weakness  in  the  kindergarten  seems  to  me 
in  not  carrying  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect  to 
logical  completeness.  As  a  system  of  organic  cul- 
ture, it  ought  to  concern  itself  with  the  health  of 
the  child ;  with  his  life  conditions,  his  food  and 
dress  and  sleep  and  exercise  and  baths  ;  with  the 
atmo^here  in  which  he  lives  outside  the  kinder- 
garten ;  with  the  condition  of  his  sense  organs, 
eye  and  ear  and  nose  and  nervous  system  gener- 
ally, for  upon  these  the  child's  progress  towards 
perfection  depends,  quite  as  much  as  upon   the 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  147 

directed  play  in  the  kindergarten  itself.  Perhaps 
it  would  sum  up  the  matter  to  say  that  in  order  to 
accomplish  its  full  purpose  of  human  renovation, 
the  kindergarten  must  concern  itself  with  twenty- 
four  hours  in  place  of  three,  and  must  consider  the 
organism  as  a  whole. 

In  sloyd  and  in  educational  manual  training 
generally,  we  have  one  of  the  most  promising  ef- 
forts that  have  been  made  to  realize  organic  edu- 
cation. The  purpose  is  human  development,  and 
the  method  is  strictly  causational.  It  is  the  pe- 
culiar strength  of  sloyd  that  it,  too,  has  realized 
the  source  of  power  in  the  emotional  life  of  chil- 
dren and  has  made  this  an  integral  part  of  its 
method.  Nothing  seems  to  me  quite  so  refreshing 
in  all  our  educational  provisions  as  the  naive  con- 
ditions imposed  in  Sweden  on  the  introduction  of 
the  sloyd  wood  work.  K  the  work  is  desired  at 
any  given  school,  say  a  district  school  where  there 
is  but  one  teacher,  the  authorities  do  not,  as 
with  us,  decree  that  the  subject  shall  be  taught, 
but  they  inquire  whether  the  teacher  believes  in 
sloyd,  and  this  belief  is  held  to  be  the  first  re- 
quisite condition.  And  the  second  condition  is 
equally  delightful.  When  the  sloyd  has  been  in- 
troduced, only  those  children  may  take  it  who 
want  to  take  it,  who  choose  it  quite  voluntarily. 
Given  a  teacher  who  believes  in  sloyd  and  children 
who  want  to  take  it,  one  can  easily  imagine  what 
fine  results  are  possible. 

Discriminating  critics  of  that  older  manual  train- 


148  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

ing  which  came  to  us  from  Russia  have  pointed 
out  that  in  giving  children  a  course  of  prescribed 
and  abstract  exercises  in  wood  and  metal,  we  are 
allowing  no  greater  play  of  self-activity  and  spon- 
taneous impulse  than  if  the  prescribed  course  were 
in  language  or  mathematics.  This  criticism  is  per- 
fectly just  and  still  applies  to  much  that  is  being 
done  in  even  the  so-called  educational  manual  train- 
ing. 

In  sloyd,  as  in  the  kindergarten,  there  is  a  pro- 
found belief  in  the  unity  of  man.  The  changes 
which  it  attempts  to  set  up  in  the  organism  are 
prompted  by  that  abiding  impulse  towards  perfec- 
tion which  is  the  motive  power  of  all  education. 
The  emotional  life  is  enlisted  in  the  work  by  a 
frank  appeal  to  the  interest  and  the  affection  of 
the  children.  Each  piece  of  work  is  a  finished 
article,  however  simple  it  may  be,  something  that 
the  child  can  use  and  care  for.  As  far  as  possi- 
ble, he  is  allowed  to  choose  what  he  will  make,  so 
that  he  can  put  his  whole  heart  and  interest  into 
the  work.  It  is  also  possible,  by  suggesting  arti- 
cles which  may  afterwards  form  suitable  gifts  for 
the  father  or  the  mother,  to  touch  the  work  with  a 
generous  and  loving  sentiment.  The  educational 
effort  involved  in  sloyd  does  not  end  here  ;  it  pro- 
vides that  the  work  shall  be  carried  out  on  strict 
physiological  principles,  shall  be  indeed  a  direct 
form  of  gymnastic,  quite  as  much  as  direct  culture 
of  the  hand  and  eye.  Furthermore,  part  of  the 
models  involve  ample  freehand  work,  so  as  to  cul« 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  149 

tivate  the  sense  of  form  and  make  the  judgment 
as  free  as  possible  from  the  necessity  of  mechanical 
tests.  Finally,  it  is  sought  to  make  all  the  models 
rich  in  the  simple  beauty  which  comes  from  good 
proportion  rather  than  from  decoration.  The  task 
proposed  for  itself  by  sloyd  is  exceedingly  subtle, 
to  engage  the  interest  and  spontaneity  and  affec- 
tion of  a  child,  to  cultivate  the  sense  of  beauty  and 
the  finer  sense  of  touch,  to  increase  the  general 
bodily  health  and  poise,  and  finally,  throughout  all 
the  work,  by  the  directed  and  purposeful  overcom- 
ing of  the  resistance  of  the  material,  to  give  power 
of  brain  and  skill  of  hand.  It  is  a  psychological 
programme  and  a  long  one,  but  sloyd  accomplishes 
it  successfully  just  in  proportion  to  its  practical 
fidelity  to  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect. 

In  the  manual  training  first  introduced  into  this 
country  from  Russia,  both  motive  and  method  were 
different.  This  was  in  1876.  The  motive  was 
technical,  the  cultivation  of  a  dexterity  which 
might  afterwards  be  applied  in  industrial  opera- 
tions. The  methods  were  those  which  were  thought 
to  be  best  adapted  to  the  bread-and-butter  problem. 
It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  the  term  edu- 
cational is  often  applied  to  this  earlier  technical 
work,  and  was  sincerely  applied  by  the  people  who 
introduced  it,  but  they  meant  something  quite  dif- 
ferent from  what  is  meant  when  the  term  is  used 
in  the  present  volume.  As  opposed  to  factory  work, 
to  the  making  of  something  which  would  have  a 
direct  market  value,  the  work  was  industrilally  edu- 


150  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

cative  rather  than  industrially  productive,  and  the 
earlier  teachers  of  manual  training  devised  abstract 
joints  and  exercises  in  order  to  emphasize  this  dif- 
ference. They  feared  that  the  schools  might  some- 
time become  factories,  and  start  out  on  the  danger- 
ous road  of  self-support. 

But  the  real  difference  is  more  profound  than 
this. 

The  earlier  manual  training  was  undertaken  in 
order  to  give  a  skill  of  hand  which  might  after- 
wards be  used  in  industry.  The  later,  or  educa- 
tional manual  training,  is  undertaken  in  order  to 
give  a  skill  of  organism  to  be  used  in  life.  The 
one  motive  is  technical:  the  other  is  human.  The 
method  used  in  technical  manual  training  is  natu- 
rally quite  different  from  the  method  used  in  sloyd 
and  educational  manual  training,  for  it  is  after  a 
quite  different  result.  The  technical  method  does 
not  concern  itself  with  the  interest  and  spontaneity 
and  affection  of  the  boy.  It  makes  little  attempt 
to  have  its  exercises  teach  beauty  or  the  finer  sense 
of  form.  It  is  carried  out  in  rooms  that  are  light 
and  wholesome,  but  it  is  in  no  sense  gymnastic.  It 
makes  no  direct  provision  for  increasing  the  bodily 
health  or  poise.  Even  as  a  strictly  bread-and-but- 
ter study  the  technical  training  would  do  better  to 
concern  itself  with  these  human  matters ;  for,  as  we 
have  been  pointing  out  all  along,  it  is  the  excellent 
man  who  produces  the  excellent  work. 

We  may  then  count  the  technical  manual  train- 
ing as  a  very  partial  contribution  to  organic  educa* 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  151 

tion,  while  we  must  count  the  educational  hand- 
work as  a  very  large  contribution.  Both  forms  of 
training  fulfill  the  partial  ends  proposed  for  them- 
selves. As  far  as  they  go,  they  are  excellent. 
They  are  open  to  criticism  when  they  are  applied 
as  if  fulfilling  the  full  programme  of  human  needs. 
The  involved  culture  of  the  hand  and  eye,  and  of 
the  brain  centres  back  of  the  hand  and  eye,  is  a 
large  part  of  organic  education,  but  it  must  not  be 
mistaken  for  the  whole.  In  addition,  there  must  be 
the  cultivation  of  the  other  senses,  especially  the 
ear  and  voice  in  speech  and  song  and  music ;  there 
must  be  an  adequate  gymnastic  for  the  develop- 
ment of  general  bodily  power;  there  must  be  an 
education  in  art,  and  finally  there  must  be  efficient 
drill  in  verbal  expression.  It  is  only  when  joined 
to  all  these  things  and  to  a  sincere  cultivation  of 
the  higher  sentiments,  that  manual  training  may  be 
said  to  offer  a  coherent  scheme  of  culture.  Taken 
alone,  it  is  only  one  out  of  a  number  of  elements 
of  culture,  very  valuable  and  full  of  promise,  but 
still  only  a  part. 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  art  schools  of  the  country 
and  ask  what  human  lesson  they  have  to  suggest,  we 
find  them  in  places  doing  magnificent  work  in  the 
cultivation  of  the  eye  and  the  hand  just  as  the 
sloyd  schools  are  doing  magnificent  work  in  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  hand  and  the  eye.  But  the  art 
schools  are  far  less  human  in  their  motive  and  far 
less  true  in  their  method.  In  looking  at  them  as 
they  exist  to-day,  one  is  much  more  struck  with 


152  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

their  human  weakness  than  with  their  human 
strength.  The  defect  in  the  majority  of  art  schools 
is  vital.  They  are  working  for  a  technical  end 
quite  as  truly  as  the  technical  manual  training 
schools  are.  They  propose  art  as  an  end,  as  a  pro- 
fession, as  a  thing  for  men  and  women  to  do.  They 
ignore,  in  the  main,  the  vastly  greater  end,  the  hu- 
man end.  As  a  result,  we  have  many  paintings  but 
little  art  work.  It  is  the  wrong  method,  even  if 
art  were  the  end.  As  an  old  lady  of  my  acquaint- 
ance once  remarked,  "  You  can't  get  more  out  of 
people,  my  dear,  than  there  is  in  them."  That  this 
is  vitally  true,  we  seem  to  be  forever  forgetting. 
True  art  is  the  overflow  of  a  radiant  spirit,  and  the 
growth  of  art  in  any  community  depends,  not  only 
on  the  number  of  workers,  but  also  on  the  num- 
ber of  appreciative  on-lookers,  creators  of  an  atmo> 
sphere  favorable  to  the  art  spirit. 

Probably  to  no  country  do  lovers  of  the  beauti- 
ful look  with  such  wistful  eyes  as  to  Japan.  There, 
one  sees,  or  fancies  that  one  sees,  a  nation  which  is 
truly  esthetic,  or  which  has  been  in  the  not  very 
distant  past.  At  first  it  seems  to  be  a  merely 
decorative  art.  It  concerns  itself  with  costume 
and  ceremonial  and  flower  arrangement  and  domes- 
tic architecture  and  landscape  gardening,  and  with 
the  utensils  and  apparatus  of  daily  life.  It  seems 
something  less  ideal  and  elevated  than  the  western 
art  of  the  gallery  and  museum.  But  when  you  come 
to  think  about  it,  this  eastern  idea  is  the  true  one, 
the  idea  of  having  art  minister  to  the  daily  esthetic 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  153 

needs  rather  than  to  intermittent  esthetic  duty. 
I  cannot  but  feel,  with  all  due  respect  to  modern 
knowledge,  that  the  Japanese  maiden  arranging  her 
chrysanthemums  so  that  they  will  be  an  object  of 
human  delight,  is  rendering,  in  that  particular  at 
least,  a  truer  and  more  beautiful  service  than  the 
western  girl  microscopically  hunting  for  some  new 
variety  of  worm.  You  remember,  perhaps,  that  fine 
incident  of  the  cloissonne  maker  who  brought  his 
wares  to  one  of  the  earlier  Paris  expositions,  and 
sold  them  to  such  excellent  advantage  that  he 
found  himself  quite  unexpectedly  in  possession  of 
fifty  thousand  dollars.  He  was  warmly  congratu- 
lated, and  it  was  suggested  to  him  that  he  could 
now  enlarge  his  factory,  and  with  a  market  already 
eager,  he  could  soon  make  a  fortune.  But  his  reply 
was  something  better  than  that.  It  was  that  his 
ware  would  become  inferior  if  he  turned  it  out 
in  such  large  quantity,  that  he  would  spend  the 
money,  rather,  in  creating  a  beautiful  garden  around 
his  workshop,  and  that  his  work-people,  in  the 
midst  of  this  encircling  beauty,  would  then  pro- 
duce still  more  beautiful  ware. 

Our  lives  are  enriched,  not  by  having  a  wealth 
of  bric-ar-brac  about  us,  but,  rather,  by  the  posses- 
sion of  a  few  really  beautiful  objects  which  we 
have  the  open  eye  to  see  and  appropriate. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  weakness  in  the  art 
schools  lies  in  focusing  their  attention  so  exclu- 
sively upon  the  work.  Their  redemption  will  come 
when  they  turn  to  human  life  and  make  art  a 


154  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

means  instead  of  an  end.  The  current  methods 
have  the  same  defect  that  the  motive  has.  They  are 
largely  prescribed,  systematized,  made  mechanical 
and  objective.  They  are  not  practical  and  causa- 
tional,  like  the  methods  of  the  kindergarten  and 
sloyd.  And  the  method  reaches  its  extreme  chilli- 
ness when  art  students  are  taught  how  to  teach  art. 
The  defect  in  method  will  be  remedied  when  the 
motive  is  humanized.  Even  now,  the  fact  that  art 
study  is  prompted  by  a  feeling  for  the  beautiful 
makes  the  effort  to  systematize  and  formalize  it 
less  efficient  and  less  harmful  than  it  would  be 
working  on  less  emotional  material.  The  contribu- 
tion of  the  art  school  to  organic  education  may  not 
be  considered  more  than  incidental,  a  by-product 
of  sight  and  handicraft  in  the  main  process  of 
turning  out  what  are  meant  to  be  art  goods.  The- 
oretically, the  effect  of  such  special  culture  could 
not  be  otherwise  than  very  partial,  and  practi- 
cally, we  find  it  to  have  just  this  defect.  The  art 
student  is  not  more  charming  and  more  beautiful 
than  other  partialists.  Too  often  the  fragmentary 
nature  of  his  culture  makes  him  less  charming  and 
less  beautiful. 

To  be  critical  in  musical  matters  seems  like  car- 
rying criticism  to  the  very  gates  of  Paradise.  It 
is,  perhaps,  allowable  if  one  does  it  in  the  hope  of 
opening  the  gates.  To  be  an  artist  in  music  re- 
quires an  amount  of  organic  power  which  stamps 
its  possessor  at  once  as  a  genius.  To  sing  is  to 
have  a  rarely  disciplined  throat  and  ear,  and  if  the 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  165 

singing  be  from  notes,  to  add  to  this  a  quick,  per- 
ceiving eye.  To  play  a  musical  instrument  is  to 
have  the  ear  and  eye  and  the  long-fingered  wonder- 
working hand.  To  this  we  must  add  an  obedient 
foot,  if  the  instrument  be  supplied  with  pedals. 
Few  acts  of  the  artist-life  require  such  fine  co- 
ordination of  faculty  as  the  playing  of  a  modern, 
triple-keyboard,  many-stopped  organ.  In  the  schools 
of  music,  music  is  pursued  as  an  end.  If  it  be 
composition,  the  result  is  a  definite,  finished  pro- 
duct. If  it  be  performance,  it  is  an  organic  state, 
and  therefore  necessarily  a  partial  human  end. 
But  this  end  is  incidental.  It  is  only  that  we  may 
have  the  music,  and  not  that  we  may  have  the 
accomplished,  beautiful  organism.  The  schools  of 
music  have  not  produced  great  artists.  They  have 
helped  artists  who  had  power  and  who  might 
have  been  great  anyway.  And  when  you  think  of 
the  great  number  of  young  people  in  this  country 
who  have  had  persistent  musical  instruction  along 
these  technical  lines,  and  have  never  become  the 
slenderest  of  musicians,  the  army  of  women  who 
have  studied  the  piano  for  years,  and  have  never 
produced  a  single  great  composition,  or  even  at- 
tained distinction  as  performers,  who  from  begin- 
ning to  end  "  never  let  their  left  hand  know  what 
their  right  hand  doeth,"  a  doubt  wiU  obtrude  itself 
as  to  whether  the  motive  and  the  method  are  not  in 
some  respects  faulty. 

The  point  of  attack  wants  to  be  changed.     It 
wants  to  be  made  human,  and  to  have  regard  mainly 


156  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

to  the  musician.  We  can  afford  to  have  the  music 
the  incident.  No  one  object  of  human  pursuit  de- 
mands so  complete  an  organic  training  as  music, 
and  were  it  pursued  as  a  human  end,  for  its  effect 
upon  the  human  person,  it  could  be  made  a  tre- 
mendous contribution  to  organic  culture.  With 
this  change  of  motive,  there  would,  as  in  the  art 
world,  be  a  distinct  change  of  method.  It  is  im- 
possible to  teach  music  to  any  one  who  does  not 
want  to  learn,  and  only  commercial  pressure  could 
make  a  true  musician  attempt  so  unattractive  a 
task.  When  music  is  taught  as  a  human  art,  as  a 
contribution  to  human  perfection,  and  not  as  an 
end  in  itself,  something  that  may  be  had  for  a  fee, 
it  will  only  consent  to  carry  on  its  work  along  the 
lines  of  cause  and  effect ;  that  is  to  say,  through 
the  interest  and  spontaneity  and  affection  of  the 
learner.  It  will  be  given  as  an  agent  of  culture, 
to  increase  the  health  and  poise  and  sight  and 
hearing  and  voice  and  touch,  the  organic  human 
power  of  those  whose  high  privilege  it  is  to  learn 
music,  and  to  offer  them  a  superb  medium  for 
the  expression  of  the  profound  aspirations  of  the 
spirit. 

In  the  gymnasiums  of  the  country  we  have  two 
distinct  institutions  as  unlike  as  possible  in  both 
their  motive  and  their  method.  Like  the  music 
schools  and  art  schools  and  manual  training  schools 
and  kindergartens,  both  types  of  gymnasium  are 
given  to  organic  culture,  but  they  make  very  un- 
equal contributions.    The  older  type  of  gymnasium 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  167 

is  a  place  where  the  body  is  cultivated  as  a  thing  in 
itself,  either  for  the  performance  of  some  athletic 
feat,  —  this  used  to  be  the  sole  office  of  the  college 
gymnasium,  —  or  for  the  sake  of  bodily  exercise  in 
some  particular  direction.  The  newer  type  of  gym- 
nasium is  quite  a  different  place,  and  the  system  of 
instruction  is  quite  different.  This  is  notably  true 
of  Swedish  gymnastic.  In  this  newer  type,  gym- 
nastic is  taken  in  the  best  sense  that  the  Greeks 
took  it,  as  a  means  of  increasing  the  health  and 
poise  and  power  of  mankind.  The  method  of  this 
gymnastic  is  very  simple.  It  uses  little  apparatus, 
and  may  even  be  carried  on  without  any  whatever. 
All  it  requires  is  a  large  open  floor  or  a  hard  dirt 
court.  Bars  and  ladders  and  wooden  horses  are 
used  where  available,  but  they  are  not  essential. 
The  system  is  primarily  a  scheme  for  general 
bodily  exercise  prompted  by  individual  will  power. 
It  seeks  to  cidtivate  the  will  through  the  greater 
control  of  the  body.  It  is,  indeed,  a  system  of 
carefully  thought  out  organic  education.  Like  all 
true  sense  culture,  it  belongs  more  properly  under 
the  head  of  mental  culture  than  under  the  head 
of  what  is  commonly  meant  by  physical  culture. 
Notice  some  of  its  fundamental  principles.  It 
dispenses  with  music,  because  the  rhythm  then  be- 
comes the  guiding  factor  in  place  of  the  human 
will.  It  dispenses  with  all  action  on  the  part  of 
the  instructor  during  the  class  movement,  for  this 
would  substitute  imitation  for  the  directing  power 
of  the  will.     Both  of  these   provisions  are  very 


158  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

subtle,  and  they  do  accomplish  their  purpose.  The 
movement  is  explained  and  illustrated  by  the  in- 
structor, and  each  child  knows  perfectly  what  is  to 
be  done.  But  he  must  do  it  himself,  of  his  own 
volition,  and  quite  unaided  by  music  or  model. 
All  commands  are  short  and  clear,  so  that  they 
may  reach  the  intelligence  with  the  utmost  direct- 
ness and  speed.  The  response  must  be  equally 
quick  and  direct.  The  first  command  —  "  Atten- 
tion !  "  —  asks  that  the  faculties  be  alert  and  ready 
to  act,  and  the  body  in  a  suitable  position  of  van- 
tage. The  second  command  names  the  part  of  the 
body  to  be  called  into  action.  The  third  com- 
mand tells  the  direction  of  motion.  The  last  com- 
mand describes  the  motion  and  calls  for  it.  Thus : 
"Attention  —  right  leg  —  upward  —  bend !  "  Each 
word  is  spoken  quickly  and  distinctly.  The  exer- 
cise is  not  only  meant  to  develop  the  body  through 
the  muscular  exertion  required,  but  still  more  to 
develop  the  power  of  command.  The  exercises  are 
all  light,  and  the  majority  of  them  would  scarcely 
bring  fatigue  if  persisted  in  for  considerable  periods 
of  time.  But  where  the  system  is  well  carried  out, 
and  the  commands  follow  one  another  in  fairly 
rapid  succession,  mental  fatigue  comes  before  mus- 
cular fatigue,  and  indicates  very  positively  where 
the  work  is  being  done.  The  whole  purpose  of  the 
Swedish  drill  is  to  increase  the  health  of  the  body, 
to  make  it  alert,  quick,  usable  ;  above  all,  to  put  it 
under  the  absolute  control  of  the  will.  To  do  this 
is  to  practically  follow  out  the  principle  of  cause 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  169 

and  effect.  It  adds  immensely  to  the  charm  and 
the  success  of  life,  and  so  makes  a  large  contribu- 
tion towards  the  quest  for  perfection.  It  gives  one 
a  resourceful  feeling  that  the  body  is  ready  to  do 
the  bidding  of  the  mind,  is  indeed  a  well-trained 
servant,  untiring  and  devoted.  Viewed  from  the 
point  of  view  of  organic  education,  the  strength 
of  the  Swedish  system  lies  in  this,  that  it  does 
make  the  body  a  very  much  more  effective  tool  for 
carrying  out  the  admirable  purposes  of  the  mind. 
It  offers  a  general  increase  of  power,  and  does  not 
pretend  to  the  culture  of  any  particular  faculty  or 
sense.  Its  purpose  is  partial,  but  such  as  it  is,  it 
performs  it.  And  this  service  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance, since,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  the  founda- 
tion for  all  subsequent  special  sense  culture. 

The  object  in  thus  passing  in  review  the  per- 
formance of  the  kindergarten,  the  educational  work- 
shop, the  studio,  the  conservatory,  and  the  gymna- 
sium has  been  to  point  out  their  strength  and  their 
defect  when  viewed  as  possible  processes  for  the 
carrying  out  of  the  social  purpose.  It  is  manifest 
that  they  all  fail  in  this,  that  not  one  of  them 
works  out  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect  to  its 
logical  completeness,  that  is,  to  a  process  covering 
twenty-four  hours ;  not  one  of  them  makes  good 
health  an  absolutely  unavoidable  result;  not  one 
of  them  has  a  compelling  word  to  say  about  food 
and  drink  and  dress  and  baths  and  sleep  and  open 
air  and  fun  and  love.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  they  do  not  pretend  to.     The  contention  is 


160  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

merely  that  it  is  only  by  such  pretension,  and  a 
practical  making  good  of  the  pretension,  that  the 
social  purpose  can  be  realized.  Organic  education 
must  cover  the  whole  twenty-four  hours,  the  whole 
year,  the  whole  lifetime,  and  must  have  added  to 
it  such  abstract  training  in  language  and  science 
and  mathematics  as  careful  examination  shows  to 
be  salutary,  if  it  is  to  be  the  accepted  process  for 
the  production  of  the  people  of  power,  men  and 
women  who  are  strong  and  beautiful  and  accom- 
plished and  good. 

If  we  acted  out  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect, 
I  have  said  that  we  would  be  artists ;  and  in  no 
department  of  human  effort  would  it  be  so  alto- 
gether interesting  and  profitable  to  be  an  artist  as 
in  this  most  important  of  all  social  operations,  the 
realizing  of  the  social  ideal.  Our  failure  to  act 
causationally  results  from  our  deficient  belief  in 
cause  and  effect.  We  are  not  philosophers,  even 
in  education,  one  of  the  most  ideal  of  our  pursuits, 
and  this  means  that  in  spite  of  all  our  boasting  we 
are  not  yet  a  practical  people.  When  it  comes  to 
the  very  obvious  and  unimportant  things,  to  money- 
getting  and  shop-keeping  and  stock-jobbing  and 
out-racing  and  over-dimensioning  the  rest  of  the 
world  generally,  we  seem  to  have  considerable  turn 
for  the  practical,  though  even  here  I  am  told  that 
ninety-seven  per  cent,  of  our  business  men  sooner 
or  later  meet  with  failure.  It  must  be  humiliatinsr 
to  go  in  for  such  a  minor  end  as  money  and  then 
not  get  it.     But  in  the  more  important  affairs  of 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  161 

the  hour,  the  gentle  art  of  living,  the  vastly  signi- 
ficant process  of  educating,  we  are  hardly  causa- 
tionists  at  all,  but  out-and-out  dreamers  ;  with  small 
turn  for  the  practical,  and  quite  deserving  all  the 
reproach  which  the  doubters  are  so  ready  to  throw 
at  us. 

The  first  concern  of  a  practical  educational  sys- 
tem should  be  with  the  life  conditions.  These  are 
now  left  in  part  to  the  home,  in  large  part  to 
chance.  To  be  sure,  every  careful  mother  tries  to 
work  them  out  to  the  best  of  her  ability.  But 
look  what  a  tremendous  task  we  are  putting  upon 
her,  a  task  that  would  tax  the  wisest  specialist. 
It  would  be  far  more  reasonable  to  ask  the  care- 
ful mother  to  give  her  children  the  elementary 
English  branches  at  home,  for  these  are  much  more 
manageable  than  the  questions  which  we  do  leave 
to  her.  Then,  too,  the  mass  of  mothers  are  not 
practically  careful  and  they  are  not  practically  in- 
telligent. The  very  children  who  start  out  with 
least  in  the  matter  of  heredity  get  least  under  our 
present  system  in  the  way  of  efficient  culture.  In 
Greece  they  were  more  practical  than  this.  At 
its  best,  education  covered  twenty-four  hours.  This 
is  the  first  work  to  be  done  by  practical  organic 
education,  to  investigate  and  make  known  just 
these  simple  matters  of  daily  living,  —  the  sort  of 
food  and  drink  which  will  give  the  best  results  in 
the  way  of  nutrition  and  growth  ;  the  sort  of  dress 
which  will  give  the  amount  of  protection  needed, 
and  still  permit  a  wholesome  freedom  of  motion 


162  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

and  allow  the  air  and  sunshine  to  strengthen  and 
vivify  the  little  bodies ;  the  kind  of  baths  which 
are  best  for  children,  the  temperature,  the  number 
a  day,  the  proper  hour  ;  the  amount  of  sleep  which 
is  needed ;  the  physical  and  intellectual  atmo- 
sphere which  should  surround  the  child,  and,  finally, 
the  sort  of  play  and  spontaneous  occupation  which 
ought  most  to  be  encouraged.  It  is  unreasonable 
to  expect  a  young  mother,  herself  quite  unin- 
structed  in  even  the  rudiments  of  science,  to  meet 
these  difficult  questions  successfully ;  and  with  our 
present  commercial  spending  of  the  days,  the  fa- 
thers do  not  at  all  count  in  such  matters. 

For  this  reason,  it  often  happens  that  boys  sent 
to  good  boarding-schools  turn  out  the  stronger  men, 
for  these  all-important  life  problems  have  to  be 
faced  there,  and  some  solution  reached. 

Just  in  proportion  as  we  believe  in  the  unity  of 
man  and  the  principle  of  causation,  are  we  bound 
to  see  to  it  that  the  human  organism  is  wholesome 
and  well  nourished,  before  we  may,  with  any  de- 
gree of  success,  start  out  upon  the  work  of  special 
development,  which  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  the 
sole  function  of  the  school. 

This  constant  appeal  to  the  agency  and  test  of 
causation  is  prompted  by  an  intense  desire  to  get 
at  the  practical  things  in  education,  and  to  make 
it  a  vital,  effective  process.  If  we  want  the  seeing 
eye  and  hearing  ear  and  trained  voice  and  discrim- 
inating touch  and  taste  and  smell ;  if  we  want 
good  red  blood  and  high  spirit  and  serene  poise ; 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  185 

if  we  want  charm  and  accomplishment  and  beauty ; 
if  we  want  a  warm  and  generous  and  reverent 
heart;  in  a  word,  if  we  want  human  wealth,  then 
we  must  set  to  work  and  strive  for  these  things, 
and  as  a  practical  people  we  must  work  along  the 
line  of  cause  and  effect,  by  employing  agencies 
which  are  adequate  to  bring  about  the  desired 
results. 

It  requires  character  to  be  moral,  and  it  requires 
intelligence.  The  decalogue  represents  a  sturdy, 
primitive  sort  of  morality  which  the  world  can 
never  afford  to  disregard.  The  nations  which 
have  been  true  to  this  code  have  had  their  reward, 
a  reward  of  physical  health  and  well-being  which 
have  led  to  dominion  and  power.  But  the  deca- 
logue is  at  its  best  when  it  is  taken  as  the  foundal- 
tion  of  morality  and  not  at  all  as  the  full  super- 
structure. To  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  modern 
moral  life,  our  code  must  be  touched  with  the 
spirit  of  a  new  commandment,  and  must  have 
added  to  it  that  impulse  towards  perfection  which 
gives  to  morality  the  positive  element  of  an  ever- 
present  and  ever  -  progressive  obligation.  It  is 
more  inexorable  than  anything  ever  written  on 
tables  of  stone.  It  requires  not  only  that  we  shall 
entertain  lofty  ideals,  but  quite  as  rigidly  that  we 
shall  attain  them.  Otherwise,  the  torch  is  handed 
to  another  and  a  worthier  keeper.  We  must  pro- 
pose to  ourselves  attainable  ends.  The  unattain- 
able end  is  a  simple  absurdity  which  can  possess 
eharm  only  for  the  sentimentalists,  and  these  peo- 


164  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

pie,  as  we  all  know,  are  never  moral.  The  attain- 
able end  represents  a  failure,  an  out-and-out  im- 
morality if  it  is  not  reached.  In  a  word,  morality 
is  a  practical  operation  and  not  an  idle  sentiment 
The  bad  son  who  said  he  wouldn't  and  did,  is 
counted  better  than  the  good  son  who  said  he 
would  and  did  n't.  Morality  is  only  satisfied  by 
success.  This  may  seem  a  hard  saying,  but  it  is 
literally  true.  The  good  farmer  is  not  the  one 
who  raises  poor  crops.  The  good  engineer  is  not 
the  one  whose  structures  collapse.  The  good  cap- 
tain is  not  the  one  who  runs  his  ship  on  the  rocks. 
The  good  doctor  is  not  the  one  who  kills  his  pa- 
tients. Neither,  let  us  forever  bear  in  mind,  is  the 
good  man  the  one  who  misses  living  the  good  life. 
Success  is  the  measure  of  goodness.  Morality, 
which  has  to  do  with  right  living,  is  only  satisfied 
by  right  living.  The  most  evolved  conduct,  as 
Mr.  Spencer  has  pointed  out,  is  the  conduct  in 
which  means  are  most  perfectly  adapted  to  ends, 
that  is  to  say,  conduct  marked  by  just  this  quality, 
the  quality  of  succeeding.  So  the  philosopher-art- 
ist is  the  only  truly  moral  person,  and  he  is  moral 
because  as  philosopher  he  has  a  rigid  belief  in 
cause  and  effect,  and  as  artist  he  has  the  rigid 
habit  of  carrying  cause  and  effect  into  action. 

A  faith  so  sturdy  as  this  may  not  be  held  by 
weaklings.  It  is  the  faith  of  the  men  and  women 
of  power.  Failure  is  only  another  name  for  im- 
morality. Human  failure  means  human  immoral- 
ity.    The  absence  of    health  and   strength  and 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT  166 

beauty  and  wisdom  and  accomplishment  and  lov- 
ableness  is  a  moral  delinquency.  It  means  that 
that  impulse  towards  perfection,  which  alone  makes 
human  life  significant  and  divine,  has  either  been 
denied  altogether,  or  else  that  as  a  plan  of  life  it 
has  been  so  feebly  handled  as  to  come  to  nothing. 
To  be  moral  is  to  be  practical ;  to  be  practical  is  to 
succeed.  As  idealists  are  the  really  practical  peo- 
ple of  the  world,  they  are  obliged  to  look  upon  the 
process  of  education  as  a  human  adventure  in  which 
they  dare  not  fail.  The  social  purpose  is  a  practical, 
attainable  end,  and  consequently  the  educational 
process  is  moral  only  as  it  accomplishes  this  end. 

To  those  who  love  the  things  of  the  spirit,  and 
who  delight  in  the  intellectual  life,  this  frank  and 
practical  proposition  to  save  man  through  the  puri- 
fication and  regeneration  of  his  organism  means 
much  more  than  the  mere  production  of  so  many 
clever,  healthy  animals.  It  means  essentially  the 
redemption  of  the  spirit,  for  the  two  go  hand  in 
hand.  One  end  cannot  be  realized  without  the 
other.  Although  we  discarded  dualism  in  the  very 
first  chapter,  as  a  view  of  the  world  not  borne  out 
by  experience,  I  cannot  forbear  returning  to  it  a 
moment  in  order  to  suggest  that  the  older  plan  of 
spiritualizing  the  world  along  dualistic  lines  has 
signally  failed.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  body 
wars  against  the  spirit,  but  this  is  not  because 
they  have  a  dissimilar  course  to  run ;  it  is  because 
they  have  a  common  destiny,  and  any  misadventure 
with  the  body  means  a  corresponding  misadventure 


166  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

with  the  spirit.     The  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is 
not  the  dualistic  way  of  still  further  maltreating 
the  body,  but  the  monistic  way  of  redeeming  and 
perfecting  the  body.     Nor  can  I  forbear  to  suggest 
once  more  that  the  things  of   the  spirit  can  only 
express  themselves  through   the  rich   imagery  of 
the  senses,  that  the  delight  in  the  intellectual  life 
is  simply  a  delight  in  the  symbolism  of  the  world- 
life.     After  all,  the  intellectual  life  is  but  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  sincere  passion  of  experienced  life,  a 
representation.     The  reality  is  the  passion  itself. 
To  attain  human  wealth  we  want  to  put  into  daily 
/    life  itself  those  elements  which  make  art  and  lit- 
/     erature  glorious,  and  to  turn  increasingly  from  art 
/      and  literature  to  life.    Reality  is  better  than  repre- 
I      sentation ;  life  at  first  hand,  warm,  glowing,  beau- 
\    tif ul  human  life,  is  better  than  any  picture  of  it. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CHILDHOOD 

If  we  believe  that  the  wealth  of  the  world  is 
human,  that  it  consists  of  beautiful  men  and  beau- 
tiful women  and  beautiful  children,  people  of 
accomplishment  and  goodness  and  power;  if  we 
believe  in  cause  and  effect,  and  are  consequently 
practical  people,  with  a  turn  for  making  our  plans 
come  true,  then  the  educational  process  which  is 
to  carry  into  effect  this  magnificent  social  creed 
must  be  a  thoroughly  practical  process  which  will 
keep  this  end  resolutely  in  mind,  and  will  as  reso- 
lutely work  for  its  accomplishment. 

Just  as  the  social  purpose  covers  the  whole  of 
life  and  includes  all  citizens,  so  the  educational 
process  must  cover  the  whole  of  life,  and  include 
all  citizens.  Human  life  is  a  continuous  experience 
from  the  moment  of  parental  conception  to  the 
moment  of  withdrawal  from  the  visible  world.  So 
far  as  we  know,  birth  and  death  are  the  only  abrupt 
crises  in  this  human  experience,  and  even  these  are 
only  apparently  abrupt.  There  are  many  phases 
in  the  experience  as  a  whole,  but  they  fade  into  one 
another  very,  very  gradually.  The  educational 
process,  to  be  true  to  its  high  end,  must  have  the 


168  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

same  continuity  and  the  same  gentle  passage.  We 
may,  however,  without  violence,  count  childhood  as 
a  distinct  period  if  we  are  careful  to  make  its  clos- 
ing characteristic  the  initial  characteristic  of  the 
succeeding  period  of  youth. 

As  human  life  responds  to  the  ideal  of  a  progres- 
sive perfection,  its  span  must  increase  both  in  point 
of  actual  years  and  in  the  richness  of  their  con- 
tent. This  will  make  each  period  of  life  corre- 
spondingly longer.  As  the  possibilities  of  life  grow 
strong  and  fine,  it  requires  distinctly  greater  peri- 
ods of  time  to  do  even  half  justice  to  their  poten- 
tial content.  As  the  human  vista  broadens  and 
lengthens,  there  is  an  over-spilling  of  the  days  of 
childhood.  And  why,  indeed,  should  we  wish  to 
compress  and  contract  anything  so  altogether  charm- 
ing? From  a  human  standpoint  there  is  no  reason. 
Ample  childhood  makes  rich  youth,  and  rich  youth 
glorious  manhood,  and  these,  taken  together,  form 
the  perfect  life.  From  a  commercial  standpoint 
this  is  of  course  very  bad  doctrine.  It  diminishes 
the  cheap,  underpaid  labor  of  the  world  by  with- 
drawing children  from  the  service  of  profit.  Then, 
too,  competition  is  so  keen  that  those  who  want  to 
come  to  the  top  in  the  commercial  caldron  feel 
that  they  must  begin  early  and  work  up.  One 
hates  the  very  phrase,  this  beginning  early  and 
working  up,  for  it  has  turned  many  a  human  pro- 
mise into  human  failure.  It  seems  to  me,  then,  that 
from  our  ampler  human  view  it  is  not  too  much  to 
count  the  first  fifteen  years  of  life  as  the  dear  pos- 


CHILDHOOD  169 

session  of  childhood,  and  to  treat  these  years  frankly 
as  the  golden  age  of  innocence. 

There  is  also  a  deep  biological  reason  for  making 
such  a  division.  Of  the  five  phases  in  the  life- 
history  of  the  human  organism,  —  birth,  nutrition, 
growth,  reproduction,  and  death,  —  childhood  cov- 
ers the  whole  of  birth,  both  pre-natal  and  the  early 
years  of  post-natal  existence,  the  period  of  most  ac- 
tive nutrition,  and  by  far  the  greater  part  of  growth. 
At  birth  the  average  child  weighs  about  eight 
pounds.  By  his  fifteenth  birthday  he  will  weigh  in 
the  neighborhood  of  a  hundred  pounds,  an  increase 
of  at  least  twelvefold.  During  all  the  rest  of  life 
the  increase  will  be  hardly  twofold.  Roughly 
speaking,  the  human  organism  attains  one  half  its 
growth  in  one  fifth  of  its  life,  and  the  other  half, 
at  unequal  and,  in  the  main,  at  diminishing  rate, 
during  the  remaining  four  fifths.  Childhood  is 
marked  by  tremendous  physical  activity,  and  the 
educational  process  must  build  itself  upon  this 
as  a  fact  of  major  importance.  Childhood  may 
properly  cover  the  whole  of  life  up  to  the  beginning 
of  the  development  of  the  reproductive  functions. 
The  process  of  childhood  must  concern  itself  phy- 
sically with  birth,  nutrition,  and  growth ;  it  must 
concern  itself  intellectually  with  the  awakening  of 
the  spirit,  its  nourishment  and  expansion. 

The  real  culture  of  a  human  organism  begins 
years  back  in  the  lives  of  the  boy  and  girl  who 
later  enter  into  parenthood,  just  as  their  life  cul- 
ture had  still  earlier  origin.     In  every  wholesome 


170  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

organism  the  instinct  of  reproduction,  the  instinct 
of  race-preservation,  is  as  natural  as  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation,  and  we  are  poor  philosophers 
if  we  ignore  this  vital  fact.  Both  instincts  have 
led  to  cruelty  and  disorder.  But  both  instincts  are 
necessary,  and  are  capable,  therefore,  of  the  highest 
idealization.  In  the  following  pages,  the  question 
of  reproduction  will  be  dealt  with  not  as  a  mis- 
fortune, a  savage  force  which  we  would  do  much 
better  without,  but  in  what  is  believed  to  be  the 
far  more  wholesome  spirit,  as  a  distinct  good  for- 
tune, as  a  social  force  which  may  be  wholly  be- 
nignant and  human.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
perfection,  the  quest  of  that  which  is  excellent  and 
beautiful,  the  office  of  parenthood  is  a  very  sacred 
office,  which  may  not  lightly  be  entered  upon,  or 
even  entered  upon  at  all  by  those  who  are  dis- 
qualified. A  wedding  ceremony  does  not  consti- 
tute the  qualification.  It  is  much  more  organic 
than  that.  In  our  more  complex  societies  we  have 
created  a  very  deep  sentiment  that  children  may 
not  be  born  out  of  wedlock,  and  as  a  social  safe- 
guard it  has  been  in  part  successful ;  but,  like  the 
Decalogue,  this  is  only  a  foundation  of  morality, 
and  not  at  all  the  full  measure  of  the  spirit.  We 
must  create  the  far  more  important  sentiment  that 
only  those  may  enter  into  wedlock  who  have  the 
pure,  fair  bodies  and  the  sound  minds  of  accepta- 
ble parenthood. 

In  this  connection  I  should  like  to  point  out  one 
form  of  marriage  which  is  to-day  making  against  the 


CHILDHOOD  171 

perfection  of  the  individual  life,  and  of  the  child- 
hood which  is  the  offspring  of  such  a  union,  —  I 
mean  the  economic  marriage,  the  marriage  of  a 
pure,  fair  woman  with  a  man  of  unsuitable  age  and 
deficient  soundness  of  organic  tissue,  and  allowed 
for  the  simple  reason  that  he  can  afford  her  ample 
financial  support.  Such  an  economic  marriage 
represents  a  moral  transgression  on  very  high 
grounds.  Yet  it  is  sanctioned  in  families  which 
nourish  a  high  tradition  of  honor,  and  solemnized 
in  churches  which  profess  a  high  sense  of  religion. 

My  own  deep  interest  in  that  social  reform  which 
means,  among  other  things,  the  entire  liberation 
of  woman  and  her  economic  and  civil  equality, 
through  a  wiser  administration  of  the  national  re- 
sources, is  prompted  by  a  desire  to  see  in  her  the 
sturdier  life  of  a  real  independence,  and  to  see  also 
the  purification  of  the  race  life  at  its  very  foun- 
tain, in  the  holy  office  of  parenthood ;  and  this,  I 
believe,  will  only  come  about  when  both  men  and 
women  are  economically  independent. 

The  culture  of  childhood,  as  a  consciously  di- 
rected process,  should  cover  the  period  of  gesta- 
tion, from  conception  to  birth,  quite  as  carefully  as 
the  first  fifteen  years  of  independent  organic  life. 
Every  personal  experience  of  any  range  whatever  in- 
cludes a  knowledge  of  some  child  dreadfully  marred, 
perhaps  wholly  handicapped,  by  the  unfavorable 
circumstances  of  its  pre-natal  life.  Our  knowledge 
has  come  largely  through  these  disasters.  But 
perhaps  we  shall   be  still  more  alert  to  the  im- 


172  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

portance  of  such  pre-natal  influences,  if  we  simply 
marshal  the  conditions  before  our  eyes,  eyes  open 
to  the  principle  of  cause  and  effect,  and  then  make 
sound  application  of  our  general  knowledge.  In 
the  whole  range  of  chemistry  we  do  not  find  more 
complex,  more  unstable,  organic  material  than  this 
highly  sensitive,  highly  organized,  human  embryo. 
It  is  curiously  open  to  every  impression,  to  every 
influence.  Even  were  it  less  impressionable  througli 
its  own  constitution,  it  is  growing  at  a  speed  which 
makes  it  the  scene  of  intense  molecular  activity, 
and  hence  singularly  open  to  those  more  permanent 
molecular  re-arrangements  upon  which  the  future 
condition  of  the  organism  so  largely  depends.  At 
no  other  period  in  the  life  of  the  human  organism 
do  we  have  such  altogether  astonishing  growth. 
In  a  period  of  about  nine  months,  an  almost  micro- 
scopic egg,  a  germ  only  about  the  one  twenty-fifth 
of  an  inch  in  diameter,  develops  into  the  relatively 
giant  proportions  of  the  human  infant.  These  are 
quite  familiar  facts,  but  the  thought  is  less  familiar 
that  as  causationists  in  education,  as  people  given 
over  to  the  practical  study  and  pursuit  of  perfec- 
tion, we  are  quite  bound  to  give  these  vital  facts 
very  grave  consideration  when  we  come  to  the  for- 
mulation of  a  thoroughgoing  course  of  organic 
education.  Just  as  the  embryo,  so  fraught  with 
human  possibilities,  is  open  to  all  sorts  of  harmful 
influences,  so  also  is  it  open  to  all  sorts  of  perfect- 
ing influences.  The  very  sensitiveness  which  makes 
it  so  open  to  harm  makes  it  equally  open  to  good. 


CHILDHOOD  173 

and  it  is  this  very  hopeful  aspect  of  the  case  which 
positive  education  must  seize  upon. 

I  am  venturing  to  discuss  questions  which  are 
commonly  considered  outside  of  the  province  of  the 
educator,  but  their  tremendous  importance  makes 
allowable  my  plain  speech. 

The  influences  surrounding  maternity  must  not 
only  be  guarded,  —  they  must  be  carefully  culti- 
vated. It  is  a  field  for  the  most  beautiful  and 
far-reaching  work,  the  work  of  bringing  beauty  and 
health  and  serenity  into  the  very  organic  fibre  of 
the  future  men  and  women  of  the  race.  The  im- 
pulse for  this  work  must  come  from  the  heart  of 
the  mother,  but  it  is  an  impulse  which  may  be 
strengthened  and  instructed  by  the  outspoken  voice 
of  the  teacher,  a  voice  which  must  proclaim,  if 
need  be,  with  the  vehemence  of  an  Isaiah,  the 
double  truth  that  ill-born  children  are  ever  a 
crime,  that  well-bom  children  are  ever  a  possibil- 
ity. This  is  the  law.  These  considerations  ought 
to  make  motherhood  very  sacred,  a  time  for  all 
gentleness  and  patience  and  love,  a  time  for  music 
and  beauty  and  spiritual  elevation  of  thought ;  and 
this  for  the  sake  of  both  the  mother  and  child,  —  for 
the  mother  who  is  to  meet  such  tremendous  suffer- 
ing as  the  price  of  renewed  life,  for  the  child  who 
is  to  carry  the  impress  of  these  influences  through- 
out three-score  years  and  ten.  There  is  some 
prejudice  against  the  public  amelioration  of  the 
anguish  of  motherhood,  through  the  establishment 
of  maternity  hospitals  and  the  like,  lest  by  reducing 


174  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  suffering  they  may  also  reduce  the  incentives 
to  domestic  morality ;  but  such  a  supreme  moment 
in  the  life  of  a  fellow-being  is  not  the  time  to 
ask  questions.  It  is  for  society  to  reduce  the 
temptations,  the  economic  pressure  which  leads  to 
vice,  to  lay  its  strong  hand  upon  the  libertine, 
the  real  offender,  and  not  in  cruelty  to  select  the 
ansfuished  mother  as  the  instrument  of  its  wrath. 
Whatever  her  guilt,  she  has  in  part  atoned  for  it 
by  a  deeper  suffering  than  men  can  ever  know. 
And  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  child  at  least 
is  guiltless,  and  in  the  name  of  our  common  human- 
ity deserves  to  be  ushered  into  the  world  under 
such  conditions  as  will  best  further  its  subsequent 
life. 

Let  me  repeat  it,  that  the  concern  of  the  utmost 
moment  in  the  educational  process  of  childhood  is 
to  see  to  it  that  children  are  well  born.  No  after 
care  and  training  can  make  the  weakling  strong. 
No  subsequent  neglect,  short  of  absolute  injury, 
can  entirely  rob  the  strong  one  of  his  strength. 
So  vital  are  these  considerations  that,  with  the 
evolution  of  a  keener  social  conscience,  they  must 
become  incorporated  into  our  marriage  laws,  just 
as  they  have  already  become  incorporated  into  the 
private  conscience  of  more  evolved  individuals. 

The  first  fifteen  years  of  separate  organic  life 
are  full  of  educational  possibilities  of  the  highest 
moment,  possibilities  which  under  our  present  ad- 
ministration of  childhood  are  very  commonly  lost. 
We  have  still  the  highly  sensitive  organism  in  which 


CHILDHOOD  175 

to  wrap  up  the  accomplishments  and  powers  of 
later  life,  and  we  have  also  the  plasticity  which 
comes  with  rapid  growth ;  when  the  molecules  of 
the  body  are  in  a  state  of  motion  —  and  in  children 
they  are  fairly  dancing  with  activity  —  it  is  much 
easier  to  re-arrange  them  in  predetermined  patterns 
than  when  the  molecules  have  the  relative  sluggish- 
ness which  comes  with  more  advanced  years.  I 
am  very  fond  just  here  of  an  illustration  borrowed 
from  the  engineering  world,  for  it  seems  to  me  to 
drive  the  truth  home  with  quite  irresistible  force. 
When  a  rod  of  iron  is  subjected  to  constant  vibra- 
tion, as  in  a  much-used  bridge  structure,  it  rapidly 
becomes  crystalline,  and  must  be  replaced  by  more 
fibrous  metal.  Yet  the  same  rod  in  the  quiet  of  a 
warehouse  would  suffer  no  such  molecular  change. 
It  is  only  when  the  molecules  are  in  motion  that  the 
crystallizing  forces  have  a  chance  to  act.  It  is  lit- 
erally the  same  with  children.  Vv^hen  the  organism 
is  rapidly  changing,  as  it  is  during  the  whole  period 
of  normal  childhood,  it  is  wonderfully  impressi- 
ble. When  it  ceases  to  change  rapidly,  it  ceases 
to  be  readily  impressible.  Periods  of  arrested 
growth  are  marked  by  difficulty  of  organic  acquire- 
ment. When  the  organism  is  too  sluggish,  certain 
arts  are  quite  impossible.  The  mastery  of  the 
violin,  as  we  all  know,  is  entirely  out  of  the  ques- 
tion unless  one  begin  even  before  the  teens  are 
reached.  The  art  of  swimming  is  very  easy  for  a 
boy  of  ten,  and  exceedingly  difficult  for  a  man  of 
thirty.     Illustrating  the  same  point,  we  find  that 


IW  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

older  and  more  sluggish  organisms  rise  to  unwonted 
activity  under  stress  of  unusual  conditions,  —  deaf 
people  hear  on  a  rapidly  moving  train ;  dull  men 
"  rise  to  the  occasion  "  and  surprise  themselves  and 
their  friends  ;  an  excited  author  writes  better  than 
he  knows  how ;  a  man  of  deficient  aural  memory 
finds  himself  humming  a  tune,  which  he  has  al- 
lowed himself  to  beat  time  to  by  some  bodily  move- 
ment. So  true  is  all  this  that  one  even  reads  on 
credible  authority  that  a  movement  of  the  jaws,  as 
in  the  mastication  of  dried  figs  or  other  difficult 
comestibles,  is  favorable  to  thought.  I  should  be 
sorry,  however,  to  have  this  argument  used  in  sup- 
port of  chewing-gum ! 

This  sensitiveness  and  this  mobility  make  the 
years  of  childhood  the  very  most  important  years 
of  all  for  the  purposes  of  organic  education.  One 
could  ask  for  no  better  material  than  normal, 
healthy  childhood. 

The  schemes  of  education  which  have  every 
other  merit  but  that  of  succeeding,  commonly  ex- 
cuse themselves  by  putting  the  blame  on  the  chil- 
dren. If  you  at  all  remember  that  old-fashioned 
game  of  croquet,  you  will  recall  numbers  of  players 
who  always  charged  defeat  upon  their  mallets,  and 
were  forever  trying  new  ones.  The  schools  busily 
hunting  for  perfect  children,  and  failing  with  those 
they  have,  are  much  in  the  position  of  these  clumsy 
players.  As  long  as  the  supply  of  new  children 
keeps  up,  they  can  go  on  trying  new  mallets,  but 
with  precisely  the  same  results.     It  seems  to  me 


CHILDHOOD  177 

that  childhood  is  often  slandered,  when  the  real 
fault  is  in  the  educational  process  itself.  What- 
ever the  human  material  were,  it  is  just  this  human 
material  which  education  is  called  upon  to  work 
up,  so  that  in  any  case  a  failure  would  mean  fail- 
ure. But  it  means  this  in  a  double  sense  when 
you  remember  how  excellent  the  average  human 
material  is,  how  plastic,  how  impressionable,  how 
thoroughly  vital.  One  could  ask  for  nothing  bet- 
ter. The  whole  question  is  one  of  method,  what 
to  do  with  this  material.  It  is  particularly  impor- 
tant that  the  educational  process  of  childhood  shall 
be  eminently  successful,  since  the  processes  of  all 
the  later  periods  must  wholesomely  flow  out  of  this 
and  build  themselves  upon  it.  Not  only  have  we 
then  the  best  sort  of  material  to  work  upon,  but 
we  have  also  the  highest  possible  incentive  to  work 
well. 

The  process  now  current,  of  giving  the  so-called 
English  branches,  the  classics,  a  little  foreign  lan- 
guage, and  a  touch  of  organic  work,  is  manifestly 
not  successful.  If  we  judge  it  theoretically,  it 
stands  quite  condemned.  Notice  its  many  deficien- 
cies. It  does  little  or  nothing  towards  making 
sound,  vigorous  health  a  necessary  result.  It  of- 
fers no  adequate  provision  for  the  cultivation  of 
the  senses,  and  consequently  no  adequate  provision 
for  the  physiological  culture  of  the  brain  as  a 
bodily  organ.  It  makes  little  or  no  attempt  to 
build  up  the  source  of  power,  the  emotional  life. 
It  is  not  a  process  directed  to  the  realization  of  a 


\y 


178  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE  * 

high  social  purpose.  It  does  not  propose  for  its 
end  sound,  beautiful,  accomplished,  lovable  chil- 
dren. It  proposes  for  itself  what  seems  to  me  the 
quite  unworthy  task  of  having  children  learn  with 
much  worry  and  vexation  of  spirit  a  variety  of 
matters  not  of  first-rate  importance  anyway,  and 
quite  easily  learned  later  in  life,  should  they  ever 
be  wanted.  In  fact,  many  of  the  things  the  chil- 
dren learn  with  so  much  waste  of  time  one  year, 
they  would  have  found  out  for  themselves  the  next 
year. 

I  know  the  process  very  well,  and  I  am  not,  I 
think,  doing  it  any  injustice.  I  know  its  theory : 
I  used  to  hold  it  myself.  The  theory  is  that  by 
this  process  the  children  are  prepared  for  life,  that 
they  are  taught  things  which  will  be  of  high  use- 
fulness later  on.  But  if  you  ask  what  life,  use- 
ful for  what,  you  find  out  that  the  life  for  which 
the  children  are  supposedly  prepared  is  not  rich 
human  life,  that  the  things  taught  do  not  minister 
to  excellence  and  beauty,  to  human  wealth,  but 
that  the  life  is  at  second  hand  and  the  ministra- 
tion is  to  things.  Now  culture,  as  we  have  else- 
where said,  the  study  and  pursuit  of  perfection,  is 
by  nothing  so  distinguished  from  smaller  ends  and 
purposes  as  by  its  insistence  upon  the  surpassing 
value  of  the  present  moment.  This  current  pro- 
cess in  education,  which  denies  the  life  of  the 
moment  for  the  life  of  some  future  time,  cannot 
be  an  operation  of  culture.  The  very  humanities 
are  studied,  not  for  their  rich  human  content,  but 


CHILDHOOD  179 

as  a  matter  of  discipline  to  strengthen  the  mind 
for  tasks  to  come.  We  seem  to  be  dealing  with 
stimulants  and  tonics  rather  than  with  foods.  If 
we  judge  this  current  process  by  its  results,  it  also 
stands  condemned.  The  children  are  not  prepared 
for  life;  they  have  not  the  information  they  are 
supposed  to  have,  and  they  have  not  the  mental 
discipline.  Worse  stiU,  so  many  of  them  fall  out  of 
line  altogether.  These  considerations  conspire  to 
make  one  feel  that  the  current  process  in  educa- 
tion, and  particularly  the  process  of  childhood,  is 
an  immoral  process,  —  immoral  in  not  proposing  a 
defensible  social  purpose,  and  immoral  in  not  car- 
rying out  the  end  it  does  propose. 

In  turning  now  to  a  more  philosophical  and  social 
scheme  of  education,  one  is  at  once  struck  with  the 
difference  in  the  time  setting.  It  is  wholly  a  thing 
of  the  present  moment,  for  human  wealth,  its  end 
and  aim,  is  not  a  thing  to  be,  but  a  thing  that  is. 
The  charm  of  human  life  is  a  present  possession. 
Human  delight  is  a  present  experience.  The  peo- 
ple of  goodness  and  power  are  a  present  reality. 
I  lay  great  stress  upon  this  present  nature  of  the 
better  education,  for  all  our  lives  long  we  are  put- 
ting off  the  good  thing,  the  thing  in  which  we  please 
ourselves  by  believing  that  we  believe,  and  so  run 
great  risk  of  dying  without  attaining  it.  In  all 
practical  schemes  of  salvation,  the  acceptable  time 
is  now.  So  little  does  this  humanized  organic  edu- 
cation wish  to  anticipate  the  future  that  it  would 
prolong  the  period  of  childhood,  prolong  the  period 


180  EDUCATION  AND   LIFE 

of  youth,  and  end  by  prolonging  life  itself.  And 
each  period  it  regards  as  an  end  in  itself,  to  be 
made  beautiful  and  glorious  in  and  for  itself,  not 
a  vestibule  to  a  vestibule  to  a  vestibule. 

The  next  element  to  attract  one's  attention  is  the 
sweep  of  the  process.  Not  only  does  the  process  of 
childhood  cover  fifteen  years  of  post-natal  life,  but 
it  claims  as  well  the  whole  twenty-four  hours  and 
the  whole  year.  The  actual  school  process  need 
occupy  only  a  few  hours  each  day,  but  it  must  work 
in  conjunction  with  a  home  process  which  has  the 
same  purpose  and  is  equally  practical  in  carrying 
it  out.  This  requirement  is  made  imperative  by 
our  very  philosophy  of  life,  by  our  belief  in  the 
unity  of  man.  It  is  quite  as  unreasonable  to  pro- 
vide for  one  quarter  of  the  day  by  a  punctilious 
school  process,  and  leave  the  other  three  quarters 
unregarded,  as  it  is  to  appeal  so  incessantly  to  the 
intellectual  life  and  leave  the  supporting  bodily 
life  unnourished.  It  is  a  failure  in  practicality, 
and  therefore  in  morality. 

Let  us  picture  for  a  moment  the  disposition  of 
a  child's  day  who  is  living  a  wholesome,  artistic 
human  life,  and  this  is  only  another  way  of  using 
Milton's  fine  phrase  of  simple,  sensuous,  passionate. 

The  child  is  still  sleeping,  and  in  a  room  which  is 
singularly  bare,  singularly  clean,  and  singularly 
fresh.  There  is  no  carpet  on  the  floor.  There  are 
no  hangings  and  no  upholsteries.  There  is  almost 
no  furniture  in  the  room,  and  especially  no  toilet 
apparatus,  with  its  pails  of  dirty  water  and  other 


CHILDHOOD  181 

untidiness.  The  walls  are  of  wood  or  of  clean, 
hard  plaster,  presenting  in  either  case  a  surface 
which  may  be  freely  washed.  They  are  quite  de- 
void of  impedimenta,  save  a  large  picture  of  per* 
feet  childhood,  perhaps  Madonna  and  Child,  placed 
where  the  morning  sun  will  strike  it,  and  where  the 
little  one  will  see  it  when  he  first  wakens.  The 
bed  is  equally  simple.  In  place  of  the  usual  sheet 
made  smooth  and  cold  and  uncomfortable  with 
such  useless  labor,  one  finds  a  coarse  rough  sheet 
doing  better  service.  On  this  the  little  fellow  lies 
stretched  out  at  full  length,  without  a  pillow,  or 
with  only  a  very  low  one.  He  is  covered  by  a  sin- 
gle ample  coverlet,  which  allows  free  movement 
and  some  circulation  of  air. 

This  bare  little  room  is  beautiful,  not  alone  be- 
cause it  is  the  home  of  healthy  childhood,  but 
because  it  has  the  two  essentials  of  all  beauty,  — 
color  and  proportion.  The  good  parents  have  evi- 
dently preferred  to  spend  their  money  on  an  archi- 
tect rather  than  on  a  house  decorator.  Hygienic 
things  are  commonly  very  ugly,  but  it  is  a  great 
mistake  to  suppose  that  this  offense  is  necessary. 

And  now  the  child  opens  his  eyes.  Have  you 
ever  been  present  at  such  a  time,  and  caught  the 
sweet  odor  of  growth  and  seen  the  look  of  glad 
surprise  and  felt  the  healthy  renewal  of  life  ?  At 
such  a  moment  one  has  the  touch  of  true  emotion, 
I  had  almost  said,  of  worship.  One  seems  to  stand 
face  to  face  with  the  wonder  of  a  new  creation.  It  is 
wise  to  let  the  child  waken  naturally  and  as  slowly 


182  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

as  he  will.  If  he  is  in  health  and  his  life  condi* 
tions  are  what  they  should  be^  he  will  be  quite  as 
keen  to  be  out  of  bed  and  starting  the  delight  of  a 
new  day  as  you  can  possibly  be  to  have  him.  Should 
he  seem  sluggish  or  to  demand  an  undue  amount 
of  sleep,  there  is  something  wrong,  and  the  matter 
ought  to  be  investigated.  Probably  the  diet  is  un- 
suitable, perhaps  too  heavy  and  too  clogging.  In 
any  case,  the  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is  not  by  cur- 
tailing natural  sleep  and  routing  the  little  fellow 
out  against  his  will.  One  must  work  scientifically, 
and  to  work  scientifically  is  to  work  through  the 
will  and  not  in  opposition  to  it. 

Then  comes  a  dash  to  the  bath-room,  a  quick 
cold  bath,  a  brisk  toweling,  an  impetuous  return, 
and  you  have  before  you  a  ruddy  and  very  much 
awake  little  cherub.  Perhaps  once  a  week  a  good 
hot  bath,  with  plenty  of  soap,  is  not  amiss  ;  but  it 
should  be  at  night,  and  the  little  fellow  should  go 
at  once  to  bed,  for  the  hot  water  is  relaxing,  and  by 
opening  the  pores  makes  one  particularly  sensitive 
to  colds.  But  the  daily  morning  bath  should  always 
be  cold,  winter  and  summer  alike.  If  the  child  is 
somewhat  delicate,  the  bath  may  be  simply  a  quick 
sponge,  but  for  sturdier  children  a  plunge  or  shower 
is  more  invigorating.  In  any  case,  the  bath  need 
not  occupy  more  than  two  or  three  minutes.  If  one 
is  in  doubt  about  the  relative  merits  of  hot  and  cold 
water,  one  has  only  to  observe  children  under  the 
two  regimes  and  remark  how  much  sturdier  the  cold- 
water  children  are.    After  a  hot  bath  the  child  can- 


CHILDHOOD  183 

not  get  into  his  clothing  quickly  enough,  and  after- 
wards he  is  very  apt  to  shiver  and  to  complain  of 
being  cold  and  chilly.  But  the  boy  who  comes  from 
a  cold  bath  will  want  to  play  around  awhile  before 
he  gets  into  his  clothes  at  all,  and  will  be  much 
less  given  to  wrapping  up  and  to  coddling  himself. 
Moreover,  it  is  observable  that  he  is  much  less  lia- 
ble to  colds  and  grippe  than  his  less  sturdy  brother. 

And  now,  how  will  you  dress  him  ?  —  Badly  if 
you  follow  the  fashion  ;  wholesomely,  if  you  follow 
simplicity.  You  can  add  nothing  to  the  beauty  of 
a  healthy,  well-bred,  naked  boy.  A  simple  dress, 
the  least  the  climate  allows,  of  good  form  and  color, 
stoutly  made,  permitting  free  exercise,  and  giving 
sun  and  air  a  chance  to  vitalize  the  little  body,  this 
is  what  is  wanted,  —  not  upholstery  after  the  Little 
Lord  Fauntleroy  pattern.  All  that  can  be  whole- 
somely discarded,  hats,  shoes  and  stockings,  and 
the  like,  add  so  much  freedom  and  so  much  organic 
possibility. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  be  rational  in  one's  dress, 
for  the  least  deviation  from  the  current  mode  at- 
tracts an  amount  of  attention  which  more  than  bal- 
ances the  advantage.  I  like,  myself,  to  wear  no  hat, 
but  harmless  as  this  little  eccentricity  is,  I  never 
think  of  indulging  in  it  except  when  I  am  in  the 
hill-country,  for  the  price  is  very  much  more  than 
I  am  willing  to  pay.  Children  are  particularly 
sensitive  to  such  comment,  and  suffer  more  keenly 
than  some  of  us  suspect  when  they  are  obliged  to 
wear  or  to  do  unusual  things.     I  should  be  the  last 


184  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

to  inflict  such  martyrdom.  Under  any  given  condi- 
tions, the  most  sensible  clothing  will  be  the  sim- 
plest and  least  that  can  be  worn,  without  attracting 
attention.  But  in  every  community  there  are  lead- 
ing families  which  have  it  in  their  power  to  make 
wise  dress  and  social  customs  the  fashion,  and  it 
is  a  form  of  social  service  quite  worthy  of  their 
attention. 

It  is  one  of  the  many  advantages  of  life  in  the 
country,  that  is,  on  a  farm  or  on  an  estate  of  some 
size,  that  one  has  greater  freedom  to  be  wise.  My 
own  summer  home  is  in  the  hill-country,  and  I 
have  many  little  brothers  spending  the  summer 
with  me.  As  the  estate  is  a  large  one,  and  some- 
what isolated,  it  is  possible  to  establish  ideal  so- 
cial customs  without  offending  less  evolved  per- 
sons and  without  making  the  boys  suffer  from 
the  sense  of  being  unusual  or  marked.  In  the 
matter  of  dress  we  adopt  the  Greek  ideal  when 
Greek  life  was  at  its  sturdiest  and  best.  The  little 
fellows  wear  no  clothing  beyond  a  pair  of  simple 
bathing  tights.  On  reception  days  or  when  mak- 
ing excursions  off  the  estate,  they  wear  only  two 
garments,  a  low-necked,  quarter-sleeve  jersey  and  a 
pair  of  knee  trousers  to  match.  It  is  possible  to 
get  these  woven  suits  of  very  good  quality  and 
excellent  color,  so  that  the  costume,  beside  being 
eminently  simple  and  hygienic,  is  entirely  accept- 
able on  esthetic  grounds.  Indeed,  when  you  add 
a  healthy,  merry  youngster,  with  handsome,  sun- 
tanned face  and  wind-tossed  hair,  and  sturdy  brown 


CHILDHOOD  185 

arms  and  legs,  it  is  a  picture  as  pretty  as  anything 
you  will  see  at  Capri.  The  effect  of  this  constant 
exposure  is  very  marked.  There  are  no  tonics  for 
the  growing  body  at  all  equal  to  sunshine  and  fresh 
air.  Even  two  months  of  this  simple  life  in  the 
open  bring  a  wonderful  increase  of  health  and 
strength.  The  boys  do  not  catch  colds,  even 
when  the  days  are  wet  and  cold  and  windy.  That 
the  benefit  is  more  than  temporary  is  shown  by 
the  excellent  health  record  which  the  boys  make 
during  the  intervening  winters.  It  seems  to  me, 
too,  that  this  frank  and  open  treatment  of  the 
body  is  essentially  the  modest  one,  and  as  a  matter 
of  experience  it  has  met  with  the  most  wholesome 
response. 

I  have  been  tempted  to  quote  this  extreme  case 
j>i  simplicity  in  dress,  not  because  it  can  be  imi- 
tated at  present  in  many  localities,  but  in  the  hope 
that  the  principle  underlying  it  may  everywhere 
receive  increasing  application.  Amid  the  crowds 
and  dampness  and  filth  of  the  city,  a  barefooted 
child  is  manifestly  out  of  place  at  any  season  of  the 
year.  But  in  the  country  or  at  the  seashore,  in 
summer,  the  least  clothing  that  children  may  rea- 
sonably wear  will  make  them  the  sturdiest  and  the 
happiest. 

Our  small  boy  being  dressed  as  sensibly  as  may 
be,  the  next  thing  to  do  is  to  give  him  his  break- 
fast, and  this  opens  up  a  large  question  in  social 
esthetics,  the  question  of  what  we  shall  eat  and 
drink.     An  acceptable  diet,  it  seems  to  me,  must 


186  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

satisfy  these  three  conditions :  it  must  do  no  vio- 
lence to  the  sentiment,  it  must  make  for  robust 
health,  it  must  involve  no  social  disadvantage. 
Any  food  whose  getting  involves  pain  and  terror  to 
other  living  creatures  offends  the  sentiment.  Any 
food  which  is  liable  to  speedy  decay  or  deteriora- 
tion, or  which  may  not  be  digested  with  reasonable 
ease,  makes  against  health.  Any  food  whose  pre- 
paration means  rough,  brutal  practices  and  un- 
ideal  occupations  on  the  part  of  others  must  be 
accounted  a  social  disadvantage.  We  have  very 
little  scientific  data  on  this  question  of  foods,  and 
what  little  we  have  we  make  scant  use  of ;  but  I  am 
quite  disposed  to  believe  that  on  hygienic  grounds, 
as  well  as  on  moral  and  esthetic  grounds,  the  com- 
ing diet  will  be  largely  or  wholly  vegetarian.  I 
notice  that  this  seems  to  be  the  general  trend  of 
opinion  on  the  part  of  those  who  view  life  from  a 
distinctly  human  standpoint.  Simple,  nourishing, 
unexciting  food  is  evidently  what  our  little  man 
wants,  and  he  wants  it  in  an  atmosphere  of  good 
cheer  and  leisure,  not  the  haste  and  gray  cheerless- 
ness  of  a  clerk's  breakfast.  It  was  Voltaire,  I 
think,  who  remarked  that  he  had  no  respect  for 
a  man  who,  after  thirty,  asked  his  physician  what 
he  should  eat.  In  the  case  of  children,  their  im- 
mediate guardians  must  study  out  the  question  of 
a  suitable  diet.  It  will  depend  upon  the  tempera- 
ment of  the  child,  the  resources  of  the  locality, 
the  climate,  and  the  season  of  the  year.  I  would 
suggest,  by  way  of  breakfast,  what  I  give  my  own 


CHILDHOOD  187 

boys:  fresh  fruit,  fully  ripe  and  in  perfect  condition ; 
some  cereal,  such  as  shredded  wheat,  oatmeal  or 
rolled  wheat,  with  cream  and  a  little  sugar ;  and 
finally,  rolls  and  butter  or  corn  bread  and  butter, 
with  one  or  two  glasses  of  milk,  and  perhaps  an  egg 
or  some  marmalade.  This  is  a  very  simple  break- 
fast, and  one  might  even  omit  the  last  course,  but 
it  seems  to  me  quite  unwise  to  make  it  more  elab- 
orate. Especially  I  would  cut  out  meat  and  pota- 
toes, and  all  greasy  and  fried  foods.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  prescribe  the  amount  which  a  child 
shall  eat.  In  the  presence  of  an  abundance  of 
tempting  food  he  may  easily  eat  too  much,  but 
with  plain  and  simple  food,  this  will  hardly  occur. 
Good  digestion  waits  on  appetite. 

These  questions  of  quarters  and  sleep  and  bath 
and  dress  and  diet  are  not  commonly  taken  up  in 
any  detail  by  the  formal  educator,  but  they  are 
the  conditions  of  health,  and  just  in  proportion  as 
we  are  artist-philosophers  must  we  take  them  up 
and  solve  them.  We  are  only  moral  as  we  are 
successful. 

In  framing  the  occupations  of  children,  v/e  are 
as  regardless  of  the  procession  of  the  seasons  as  we 
are  of  many  other  important  matters.  It  is  a  part 
of  our  belief  in  machinery  and  dull  routine  and 
shop  ideals  of  life  generally  that  we  have  come 
to  think  there  is  some  merit  in  having  children 
get  up  in  the  dull  gray  of  a  winter's  morning,  and 
lie  abed  in  the  glorious  sunshine  of  summer.  In 
this  we  are  not  at  all  practical.     It  is  particularly 


ISS  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

in  the  process  of  childhood  that  we  want  to  take 
glad  notice  of  the  seasons,  and  arrange  all  occupa- 
tions in  harmony  with  them.  I  assume,  then,  that 
to  be  up  in  good  season  means  different  hours  at 
different  times  of  year,  and  always  means  the  hour 
of  full  light. 

Even  in  families  called  intelligent  the  breakfast 
table  is  usually  interrupted  by  a  mad  rush  for  the 
cars  or  for  school.  But  if  we  want  wholesome,  beau- 
tiful children,  we  wiU  follow  the  breakfast  with  a 
short  period  of  leisure,  and  then  go  serenely  about 
the  day's  work.  One  of  the  first  needs  in  the 
child's  day  is  for  general  bodily  exercise,  and  this 
can  better  be  given  in  the  home  than  in  the  school ; 
for  in  the  home  the  exercise  can  be  purposeful, 
some  household  service  which  will  be  of  real  use. 
Here,  again,  the  service  can  be  made  a  joy  or  a 
task,  according  to  the  spirit  we  put  into  it.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  the  childish  will  to  do 
is  rather  fitful  and  uncertain,  given  to  taking  up 
occupations  with  enthusiasm  and  then  dropping 
them  before  completion.  The  remedy  is  to  fill  out 
and  complete  the  will,  and  this,  it  seems  to  me, 
can  best  be  done  by  working  merrily  and  joyfully 
with  the  child.  A  small  boy  will  help  you  make 
his  bed  and  "  tidy  up  "  his  room  with  the  greatest 
pleasure  if  you  give  him  your  good  company  at  the 
same  time,  —  the  only  sort  of  company  you  ought 
ever  to  give  any  one,  —  while  he  would  find  it  a 
very  dull  and  distasteful  task  if  he  had  to  do  it 
alone.     Tell  him  a  story,  sing  a  duet  with  him, 


CHILDHOOD  189 

try  to  outwhistle  him,  in  short,  see  to  it  that  you 
are  merry  workers  in  this  merry,  charming  world. 
But  don't  rob  him  of  the  service,  with  its  measure 
of  health  and  good  spirit,  and  don't  teach  him  to 
look  down  on  women  while  he  is  still  in  knicker- 
bockers by  forcing  him  to  think  that  these  homely 
necessary  tasks  are  unsuitable  for  him,  but  none 
too  good  for  his  mother  or  sisters  or  the  women 
servants.  In  no  case,  however,  may  this  service  be 
paid  for  in  other  coin  than  loving  appreciation, 
for  that  is  to  turn  the  child  into  a  miserable  lit- 
tle trader,  and  quite  rob  the  service  of  value.  It 
seems  to  me  that  this  home  service  is  far  wiser 
than  that  so  often  required  of  children  in  families 
of  moderate  means,  and  that  is  the  running  of 
errands.  The  children  feel  the  friction  of  the 
market  much  more  than  grown-up  people  do,  and 
they  are  brought  into  touch  with  persons  and  con- 
ditions which  they  may  not  wisely  meet. 

A  day  is  well  begun  which  has  in  it  these  whole- 
some elements  of  home  life,  this  serenity  and  good 
comradeship  and  service ;  and  we  may  now  afford 
to  think  of  the  more  formal  occupations  of  the 
school.  It  is  to  be  observed,  though,  first  and  last 
and  always,  that  the  home  life  is  the  primary  thing 
and  the  school  life  quite  secondary. 

The  very  first  requirement  of  the  school  is  that 
it  shall  be  near  the  home  and  so  located  that  it  can 
be  reached  without  danger  and  without  nervous 
friction.  This  cannot  be  the  case  where  we  have 
such  large  schools  as  we  have  at  present,  drawing 


190  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

their  children  from  over  a  wide  area.  And  these 
large  schools  have  really  no  advantage.  They  are 
rather  appalling  to  a  sensitive  child.  He  is  hap- 
pier and  much  better  off  as  a  member  of  a  smaller 
group,  which  appeals  more  directly  to  his  love  and 
interest.  These  small  groups  are  perfectly  feasible 
in  organic  education.  The  work  itself  is  so  largely 
individual  that  a  single  group  may  properly  in- 
clude children  of  quite  unlike  ages.  The  games 
and  the  class  drills  are  general  enough  in  their  char- 
acter to  cover  somewhat  wide  ranges.  The  habit 
of  massing  together  children  of  the  same  age  takes 
away  from  the  pleasure  and  picturesqueness  of  life, 
and  ends  by  making  the  children  themselves  quite 
selfish  and  unregardful  of  others.  The  most  ideal 
group  that  we  can  picture  is  the  perfect  family 
group  in  three  generations,  the  noble,  white-haired 
man  and  woman,  and  their  children  and  their  chil- 
dren's children. 

The  little  ones  in  a  mixed  school  of  this  kind 
gain  so  much  from  the  older  children,  and  the 
older  children  have  a  tenderness  and  a  gentle  con- 
sideration brought  into  their  hearts  by  the  greater 
helplessness  and  greater  needs  of  the  little  ones. 
It  is  a  pretty  sight  to  see  a  generous  child  caring 
for  one  a  little  bit  younger  than  himself. 

The  large  schools,  with  their  vast  numbers  and 
exact  classification,  have  largely  been  brought 
about  by  administrative  rather  than  by  human 
considerations.  In  concentrated  populations  they 
doubtless  offer  certain   mechanical  conveniences, 


CHILDHOOD  191 

but  even  from  an  administrative  point  of  view 
they  are  not  unqualifiedly  successful.  The  present 
excuse  for  bringing  up  children  in  the  city  is  the 
supposed  educational  advantage.  Were  this  ad- 
vantage much  more  substantial  than  I  myself  am 
disposed  to  believe  it,  it  would  be  completely  off- 
set by  the  absence  of  fresh  air  and  sunshine,  free- 
dom of  motion  and  glad  contact  with  Nature,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  positive  elements  of  disadvan- 
tage in  city  life.  But  with  the  organization  of 
smaller  and  more  diverse  groups  into  sound  schools, 
it  becomes  possible  to  have  the  best  sort  of  culture 
in  even  the  most  remote  country  places,  anywhere, 
indeed,  that  a  score  or  more  of  children  may  be 
gathered  into  a  beautiful,  large  room  with  a  teacher 
of  organic  power.  It  seems  to  me  that  all  the  ad- 
vantage lies  with  the  small,  neighboring  school  as 
contrasted  with  the  large,  remote  one.  A  short 
journey  in  a  storm  may  be  entirely  wholesome  and 
delightful,  where  a  longer  journey  would  be  quite 
impossible ;  and  so  much  of  our  weather  is  stormy, 
that  as  a  practical  people  we  ought  to  make  pro- 
vision for  the  fact  in  our  school  plans.  The  jour- 
ney in  steam  car  or  trolley  involves  many  subtle 
exposures  as  well  as  fatigue  and  loss  of  time.  It 
is  quite  appalling  to  think  how  many  of  our  school 
children  spend  a  couple  of  hours  each  day  in  going 
to  and  from  school,  one  seventh  of  the  whole  wak- 
ing day !  The  journey  is  a  monotony  of  routine, 
bad  air  and  crowds.  It  is  almost  without  com- 
pensations. 


192  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

Let  us  imagine  our  little  boy  at  one  of  these 
small  organic  schools.  Sometimes  the  father  or 
,  mother  accompanies  him ;  sometimes  a  neighbor- 
ing playmate ;  sometimes  he  trots  off  alone. 

The  school  building,  like  the  home,  is  simplicity 
itself,  and  depends  for  its  beauty  upon  the  same 
eternal  elements  of  beauty,  upon  color  and  propor- 
tion. One  is  struck  with  the  large  amount  of  free 
floor  space.  The  children  are  evidently  expected 
to  move  around  the  rooms,  and  are  not  asked  to 
keep  still  and  forever  to  keep  still,  when  every 
impulse  is  towards  action.  The  main  schoolroom 
has  a  comfortable  bench  built  in  around  the  walls, 
and  there  is  a  good  piano  at  one  end  of  the  room ; 
otherwise  the  floor  is  perfectly  free.  Low,  broad 
windows  give  an  agreeable  light.  On  the  walls 
between  the  windows  there  are  bookshelves  and 
a  few  choice  pictures.  But  the  best  thing  in  this 
very  good  schoolroom  is  the  teacher,  the  beautiful 
strong  man  or  woman  who  is  to  turn  the  room  to 
human  uses.  The  teacher  greets  the  little  people 
with  genuine  welcome,  and  is  greeted  by  them  with 
simple  affection.  It  is  evident  that  they  have  not 
to  do  with  a  taskmaster,  but  with  a  dear  comrade. 
In  spite  of  the  freedom,  it  is  not  a  noisy  room.  You 
hear  childish  laughter  and  high  soprano  voices,  but 
that  is  all.  There  is  no  furniture  to  be  overturned 
or  stumbled  against,  and  the  children,  with  their 
bare  feet,  or  felt  slippers,  can  make  no  annoying 
clatter. 

The  day  begins  with  music,  simple  singing  in 


CHILDHOOD  193 

nnison,  and  is  entirely  by  ear.  First  comes  some- 
tiling  sweet  and  solemn,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  or  a 
simple,  reverent  chant ;  then  something  merry  and 
human,  a  song  of  the  seasons.  This  passes  into  a 
practical  music  lesson  :  the  scale  is  sung ;  then  the 
common  intervals  are  struck,  and  the  children 
name  and  sing  them.  Afterwards,  several  of  the 
ehildren  in  turn  play  the  scale,  or  find  the  inter- 
vals, on  the  piano.  There  is  no  theory  or  science 
of  music.  It  is  all  art,  pure  and  simple,  the  art  of 
beautiful  sound.  A  new  song  is  tried,  the  words 
being  learned  in  connection  with  the  music.  Then 
comes  a  final  song,  selected  by  the  children  them- 
selves, and  the  music  ends  for  the  time. 

And  now  the  teacher  reads  a  lesson,  something 
essentially  entertaining,  the  story  of  a  fine  action, 
some  performance  of  a  philosopher-artist,  the  sort 
of  story  which  will  carry  its  own  moral,  and 
need  no  explanation  or  application.  There  are 
no  formal  chapel  exercises.  Religion  and  morals 
can  best  be  taught  to  children  when  involved  in 
something  concrete,  and  they  are  too  fine  a  thing 
not  to  run  through  the  whole  day.  It  is  notice- 
able, too,  that  the  teacher  is  apparently  a  very  un- 
scientific person.  He  says  nothing  about  elocution 
and  how  children  ought  to  read.  He  simply  reads 
•well  himself. 

The  morning  lesson  is  followed  by  a  gymnastic 
drill  founded  on  the  psychology  of  the  Swedish 
system.  It  is  really  a  mental  drill,  as  those  appre- 
ciate who  have  tried  the  Swedish  gymnastic.    It  is 


194  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

not  meant  to  make  athletes,  but  to  give  control  of 
the  body,  and  to  make  the  body  obedient  to  the  will. 
The  drill  is  quick  and  sharp,  but  it  only  lasts  for 
ten  minutes  uninterruptedly.  A  vigorous  march, 
a  short  run,  a  moment  of  complete  rest,  and  then 
a  second  drill,  one  of  vaulting  and  jumping,  a 
second  interruption,  and  a  final  drill  for  the  older 
children  on  the  vertical  ladders.  In  pleasant 
weather,  the  drill  takes  place  out  of  doors  on  a 
wooden  floor,  or  on  a  court  either  of  hard  dirt  or 
smooth  turf.  In  bad  weather,  the  drill  is  in  the 
main  schoolroom.  This  first  period  of  the  day 
ends  with  fifteen  minutes  of  free  play.  The  pe- 
riod has  been  planned  to  cultivate  general  bodily 
power,  the  motor  nerves,  the  ear,  and  the  voice  ;  to 
touch  this  activity  with  wholesome  sentiment,  and 
to  allow  some  chance  for  spontaneous  action. 

It  hardly  seems  possible,  but  an  hour  and  a  half 
have  gone,  and  the  morning  is  half  spent.  As- 
suming that  the  school  began  at  nine  o'clock,  it 
is  now  half  after  ten.  I  hope  the  reader  is  not 
shocked  to  observe  that  no  formal  lessons  in  arith- 
metic or  geography  or  grammar  or  history  or  the 
like  have  yet  been  learned.  I  hope  he  will  not 
be  shocked  at  the  end  of  the  day  to  find  that  this 
is  still  the  case.  The  quest  is  for  human  organic 
power,  and  such  a  quest  must  proceed  along  causa- 
tional  lines,  rather  than  by  the  path  of  informa- 
tion. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  period  the  chil- 
dren seat  themselves  on  the  benches.    Two  of  theii 


I 


CHILDHOOD  195 

number  bring  in  a  small  table  and  spread  it  with 
simple  food,  bread  and  butter,  crackers,  milk,  or 
fruit.  The  children  serve  the  teacher,  and  then 
the  other  children,  taking  turns  in  rendering  the 
service.  Hands  and  faces  are  washed,  and  the 
children  are  ready  for  a  half  hour's  language 
lesson.  Every  other  day,  the  lesson  may  be  in 
English  reading.  In  the  growing  months,  the  sub- 
jects have  to  do  with  natural  history  in  its  broadest 
sense  and  with  exploration  and  frank  adventure. 
In  winter,  one  turns  more  naturally  to  mythology 
and  history  and  biography  and  general  literature. 
The  reading  is  made  real  by  constant  reference  to 
maps,  portraits,  photographs,  and  natural  objects. 
The  teacher  begins  the  reading,  being  careful  to 
do  it  well  and  in  a  lively  human  way.  Succeeding 
paragraphs  are  read  by  the  boys  and  girls  them- 
selves, no  formal  effort  being  made  to  teach  them 
to  read,  but  allowing  them  to  come  into  the  art 
naturally  and  through  their  own  interest,  the  way 
most  of  us  learned  who  really  care  for  reading  and 
for  the  intellectual  life. 

In  this  way  science  and  history  and  geography, 
fairy  stories  and  poetry  and  biography,  are  treated 
frankly  as  literature,  as  something  to  be  enjoyed, 
and,  it  may  be,  absorbed,  but  never  as  tasks  to  be 
drudged  over.  The  hard  work  of  the  day  is  really 
organic  ;  the  simple  fun  and  recreation  are  largely 
intellectual.  On  alternate  days  the  language  lesson 
may  be  in  spoken  French.  I  select  this  rather  than 
German  or  Italian  because  of  its  wonderful  lucid- 


196  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

ity,  its  real  power  to  serve  the  child  in  forming  an 
acceptable  literary  style  of  his  own ;  and  also  be- 
cause, in  spite  of  the  second-rate  position  of  France 
politically,  her  speech  is  still  the  world-language, 
and  therefore  a  very  important  tool  in  internation- 
alism. 

Th6  l&nguage  lesson  is  followed  by  some  of  the 
most  important  work  of  the  day,  an  hour  in  hand- 
work. The  children  pass  into  another  room  fitted 
up  with  the  necessary  work-benches  and  tools. 
They  work  individually,  and  consequently  the  dis- 
similar ages  and  tastes  and  speeds  are  no  disad- 
vantage. They  make  only  finished  articles,  which 
will  be  of  genuine  service  to  somebody.  The  chil- 
dren choose  the  articles  themselves  and  decorate 
only  what  is  admirable.  The  exercises  involve  a 
sufficient  amount  of  number-work  to  bring  famil- 
iarity with  the  fundamental  processes  of  arithmetic, 

—  adding,  subtracting,  multiplying,  and  dividing, 

—  so  that  even  from  the  older  point  of  view  the 
children  are  not  so  badly  off.  Most  of  this  manual 
training  is  in  sloyd  woodwork,  but  perhaps  one 
day  a  week  may  be  given  to  sewing,  in  which  the 
boys  as  well  as  the  girls  take  a  part,  and  one  day 
to  clay  modeling.  The  particular  form  of  hand- 
work may  well  vary  with  the  locality  and  the  season, 
but  at  least  one  hour  a  day  should  be  devoted  to 
this  cultivation  of  hand  and  eye,  and  of  general 
intelligence. 

And  now  the  morning  has  quite  gone  and  it  is 
dinner  time.     The  children  all  go  home  for  theii^ 


CHILDHOOD  197 

dinner,  and  as  they  all  live  so  near,  an  hour  and  a 
half  is  ample  time  for  the  going  and  coming  and 
the  simple  meal  itself,  with  a  little  time  to  spare 
for  outside  play  and  comradeship.  The  dinner 
should  be  the  heartiest  meal  of  the  day.  It  may 
suitably  consist  of  three  simple  courses,  —  a  hot, 
nourishing  soup  ;  then  several  well-cooked  vegeta- 
bles, especially  green  vegetables,  and  beans  and  cel- 
ery, with  a  little  meat  or  fish  or  poultry,  if  these 
be  eaten ;  and  finally  some  simple  pudding  made 
of  rice  or  farina,  not  forgetting  the  decorative 
effect  of  a  few  stoned  raisins,  or  a  colored  sauce. 
These  suggestions  are  made  only  as  a  basis  for 
something  better.  The  point  is  to  avoid  all  fried 
and  greasy  foods  and  an  excess  of  potatoes  or  other 
starches,  and  to  have  the  diet  sufficiently  rich  in 
nitrogenous  material,  and  in  green  vegetables,  such 
as  lettuce,  spinach,  asparagus,  green  peas.  If  meat 
is  not  used,  one  must  be  particularly  careful  to 
supply  the  nitrogen  in  some  other  form.  One  may 
be  a  consistent  vegetarian  as  far  as  the  moral  and 
social  requirements  of  an  ideal  diet  are  concerned, 
and  still  use  eggs,  milk,  butter,  and  cheese.  It 
might  be  well  to  include  any  animal  food  which 
has  either  not  had  sensation  at  all,  or  so  low  a 
sensation  that  death  hardly  seems  a  violence,-  as  in 
the  case  of  oysters,  clams,  scollops,  and  other  lowly 
organized  sea  foods.  Even  fish  and  poultry  may 
be  so  handled  as  not  to  offend  the  sentiment. 
There  still  remains  the  objection  that  holds  in  the 
case  of  all  animal  food,  —  the  liability  to  decay 


198  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

and  consequent  poison.  If  it  be  admitted  to  the 
diet  at  all,  great  care  must  go  along  with  it.  But 
however  simple  the  dinner,  it  must  be  esthetic,  and 
it  must  be  served  in  an  atmosphere  of  good  fellow- 
ship. Better  a  jolly  dinner  of  herbs  than  a  sour- 
faced  feeding  on  tough  beef. 

The  afternoon  begins  at  half  past  one  with  a 
quiet  half  hour  given  to  various  occupations  ac- 
cording to  the  ages  and  tastes  of  the  children.  The 
smaller  ones  may  well  take  a  nap,  or  be  read  to 
by  the  teacher  or  one  of  the  older  children.  The 
older  children  are  allowed  to  read  what  they  choose 
from  a  selected  library.  The  entire  point  is  to 
have  a  half  hour  of  entire  quiet.  Then  comes  an 
equal  period  of  art  work.  Whatever  the  medium, 
—  pencil,  crayon,  or  paint,  —  the  work  is  self- 
prompted  and  self -directed.  The  teacher  suggests 
and  helps,  names  possible  tasks,  criticises  the  re- 
sults, explains  successful  methods  of  representa- 
tion ;  but  the  real  impulse  is  from  the  child,  and 
the  office  of  the  teacher  is  simply  to  encourage  the 
child  to  give  expression  to  this  impulse.  It  will 
be  a  great  gain  if  the  teacher  himself  occupies  his 
spare  moments  with  some  work  which  the  chil- 
dren will  admire  and  can  understand.  Nothing 
so  inspires  one  to  art  work  as  true  art  work  in 
progress.  It  is  advisable  to  have  much  of  the 
work  rich  in  color,  even  barbaric  in  its  splendor, 
provided  the  colors  be  pure  and  clean,  and  the 
combinations  possible.  The  older  children  may 
make  dimensioned  drawings  of  the  articles  which 


CHILDHOOD  199 

they  intend  to  make  in  the  wood-shop.  But  even 
here  I  would  recommend  that  the  work  be  entirely 
freehand,  so  as  to  develop  hand  and  eye  and  ac- 
custom the  child  to  depending  upon  himself. 

The  remainder  of  the  afternoon,  the  best  and 
mellowest  part  of  it,  from  haK  past  two  on,  is 
given  to  volimtary  bodily  occupations,  and  is  spent 
out  of  doors  whenever  the  weather  permits.  The 
occupations  differ  with  the  season.  The  children 
attend  to  their  gardens,  or  care  for  their  pets,-  or 
play  games,  or  walk,  or  ride  their  wheels,  or  do  any 
simple  wholesome  thing  they  are  most  inclined  to. 
If  they  want  to  build  a  hut  and  play  Robinson 
Crusoe  or  Indians,  it  will  be  a  useful  sport.  If 
they  prefer  the  circus  and  to  try  tight-rope  walk- 
ing, it  is  the  very  thing  for  them  to  do,  provided 
the  rope  is  not  too  high  and  there  is  a  fat  feather- 
bed underneath.  Games  of  their  own  devising  are 
much  more  educational  than  anything  we  can  pos- 
sibly devise  for  them.  We  can  suggest  and  help 
and  encourage,  but  we  make  a  false  step  when  we 
substitute  our  will  for  theirs.  When  the  weather 
is  stormy,  there  are  charades  and  tableaux  and 
acting,  hand-ball  and  basket-ball  and  stage-coach. 
The  more  original  the  game,  the  greater  its  de- 
mand upon  action  and  inventiveness,  the  better. 
It  is  to  be  remembered,  too,  that  games  of  skill 
are  infinitely  better  than  games  of  chance.  The 
latter  I  would  discourage,  as  well  as  store-keeping, 
stamp-trading,  and  all  occupations  which  tend  to 
develop  the  commercial  spirit.     It  is  far  wiser  for 


800  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

children  to  have  their  wants  simply  and  whole- 
somely provided,  and  to  have  nothing  to  do  with 
money  or  barter. 

This  afternoon  programme  is  entirely  flexible  and 
is  altered  to  suit  the  day  and  the  season.  It  may 
not  be  carried  out  in  this  particular  form  at  any 
time,  and  usually  not  more  than  three  times  a 
week  in  any  form.  The  other  afternoons,  if  day 
and  season  allow,  are  spent  in  some  outing,  depend- 
ing upon  the  local  conditions.  If  there  is  a  lake 
or  river  near  by,  there  will  be  swimming  in  sum- 
mer, skating  in  winter,  boating  in  spring  and  fall. 
It  is  very  important  that  both  boys  and  girls  should 
learn  to  swim  and  skate  and  row  before  they  are 
fifteen  years  old,  much  more  important  than  that 
they  should  learn  arithmetic  or  geography.  Fur- 
thermore, if  it  can  possibly  be  managed,  now  is 
the  time  to  teach  them  to  ride  horseback.  One  is 
never  quite  at  home  in  the  saddle,  unless  one  be- 
gins as  a  child.  Then  there  may  be  a  forest  to 
go  sylvestering  in,  or  a  neighboring  hill  that  invites 
a  climbing.  If  the  community  is  agricultural,  and 
it  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  those  children  are 
most  fortunate  who  have  the  run  of  a  farm,  there 
will  be  plenty  of  natural  occupations  for  the  chil- 
dren, planting,  haymaking,  fruit  and  nut  gathering, 
and  these  are  better  than  anything  of  our  invention. 
The  one  supreme  condition  is  that  the  occupations 
shall  be  in  the  company  of  friendly,  gentle  people 
who  have  the  love  and  confidence  of  the  children. 
Neighbor  husbandman,  bear  this  always  in  mind. 


CHILDHOOD  201 

And  now  our  little  man  comes  home.  He  has 
had  a  long,  full  day,  but  he  is  not  unduly  tired. 
He  has  been  doing  the  things  which  were  natural 
and  proper,  things  in  which  he  could  put  his  inter- 
est and  affection.  He  has  had  exercise  and  rest, 
fresh  air  and  food,  self-directed  activity  and  gen- 
erous sentiment.  He  carries  no  books.  He  comes 
home  free-handed  and  free-minded.  He  is  an 
available  member  of  the  re-united  family  group. 
There  are  still  charming  little  services  which  he 
can  render,  a  helping  hand  in  the  preparation  of 
the  evening  meal,  some  loving  foresight  for  the 
comfort  of  the  father,  some  chivalry  for  the  mother, 
and  you  cheat  the  little  man  if  you  have  a  servant 
do  these  things.  If  the  father  has  been  away  all 
day,  he  may  want  a  substantial  dinner  in  the  even- 
ing, or  it  may  be  necessary  by  way  of  hospitality, 
but  it  is  a  mistake  to  have  the  little  people  share 
it.  A  simple  meal  is  much  better  for  them,  per- 
haps a  course  of  milk-toast,  or  hasty  pudding,  and 
then  some  cooked  fruit  or  jam  with  simple  biscuits. 
But  the  children  need  not  be  banished  from  the 
table.  And  at  this  evening  meal,  how  many  de- 
lightful matters  there  are  to  talk  about,  if  one  has 
had  these  wholesome  activities  and  sentiments  in 
one's  day.  The  father  and  mother  will  surely  want 
to  know  what  trees  are  green  in  the  forest,  what 
flowers  are  in  bud  in  the  garden,  whether  the  water 
was  cold  at  the  swimming,  or  the  ice  smooth  for 
the  skaters,  what  article  was  fashioned  in  the  work- 
shop, what  feat  was  accomplished  in  the  drill,  what 


202  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

thoughts  were  aroused  by  the  reading,  and  just 
as  surely  as  the  father  and  mother  want  to  know 
all  this  good  news,  the  little  boy  will  want  to  tell 
it,  and  out  of  his  sincere  genuine  living  will  come 
equally  sincere  and  genuine  expression. 

And  then  come  the  quiet  hour  in  the  garden  or  at 
the  fireside,  the  droll  fancies  and  the  half  guesses, 
the  drawing  closer  to  you  as  the  darkness  deepens, 
and  the  precious  love  and  confidence  it  expresses. 
The  day  is  done,  and  it  is  bedtime.  Once  more  you 
stand  in  the  beautiful  bare  little  room  upstairs,  and 
help  the  boy  to  bed.  Reverently  you  remove  the 
simple  clothing.  You  put  your  arms  around  the 
beautiful  little  body.  You  feel  the  warm  breath 
Ngainst  your  cheek.  You  listen  to  the  child  prayer. 
You  draw  the  coverlet  over  the  little  form.  In  a 
moment  the  boy  is  sleeping.  As  you  kneel  beside 
him,  you  silently  thank  the  All-Father  that  in  the 
i  orm  of  childhood  he  has  chosen  to  renew  the  world- 
life. 

In  childhood,  so  rich  is  the  abundance  of  life 
that  I  have  not  been  able  to  give  a  complete  pic- 
ture, even  of  a  single  day.  I  have  been  able  to 
give  only  the  barest  sketch.  It  must  be  taken  sim- 
ply as  a  suggestion.  Doubtless  a  wider  experience 
will  alter  many  of  the  details.  Yet  to  the  plan  it- 
fcelf  I  hold  very  tenaciously,  for  in  my  own  experi- 
ments in  education,  just  so  far  as  I  have  been  faith- 
ful to  the  human,  organic  spirit  of  this  plan,  I  have 
lucceeded,  and  just  so  far  as  I  have  been  unfaith- 
ful to  it,  I  have  failed.     It  is  an  aristocratic  plan 


CHILDHOOD  203 

in  its  insistence  upon  human  excellence,  but  it  is 
also  thoroughly  democratic  in  insisting  upon  this 
excellence  for  all.  Further,  it  is  a  plan  which  may 
not  be  dismissed  by  any  cry  of  Impossible !  or 
Utopian  !  The  bare  and  beautiful  home  costs  less 
than  the  overcrowded,  ugly  one.  The  universe  fur- 
nishes fresh  air  more  ungrudgingly  than  we  do  foul 
air.  Cold  water  is  more  obtainable  than  hot.  The 
simple  dress  and  simple  fare  mean  less  labor  and 
less  money  and  less  service.  It  is  true  that  the 
organic  schoolhouse  does  require  space  outside  and 
roominess  within,  but  it  is  a  simple  structure,  and 
the  equipment  is  not  expensive.  The  forces  of 
Nature,  of  plant  growth  and  animal  growth  and 
child  self-activity,  are  ready  to  our  hand.  Lake  and 
river  and  ocean  and  forest  and  mountain  and  field 
and  park  and  storm  and  air  and  sun,  the  real  teach- 
ers of  childhood,  serve  us  without  salary.  Even  the 
strong,  beautiful,  reverent  men  and  women  who  are 
to  gain  from  these  forces  the  reaction  of  human 
organic  power  will  be  available  as  soon  as  we  de- 
mand them. 

Even  were  it  true  that  there  were  great  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  carrying  out  this  plan,  it  would 
still  be  very  worth  while  to  overcome  the  great  dif- 
ficulties ;  for  into  these  first  fifteen  years  of  life  must 
be  crowded  the  most  important  educational  work  of 
all,  the  development  of  a  strong,  rich  personality. 
If  we  fail,  there  will  be  temperamental  poverty  for 
the  rest  of  life.  The  information  now  offered  as 
a  substitute  for  this  thoroughgoing  development 


204  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

is  of  doubtful  value  anyway,  and  later  in  life  can 
be  easily  gained  should  it  happen  to  be  wanted. 
But  organic  education  must  work  while  the  material 
is  stiU  plastic. 

The  most  highly  evolved  conduct,  the  most  hu- 
man conduct,  is  the  conduct  which  most  perfectly 
adapts  means  to  ends.  To  be  moral  is  to  be  prac- 
tical, —  to  be  practical  is  to  succeed.  If  we  want 
human  power,  if  we  believe  in  this  eternal,  world- 
wide quest  of  perfection,  then  we  must  as  a  highly 
evolved  people,  as  late  comers  on  the  stage  of  hu- 
man effort,  from  whom  great  things  are  properly 
expected,  we  must  turn  to  those  practical  organic 
operations  by  means  of  which  this  power  and  per- 
fection may  alone  be  gained.  The  educational 
process  of  childhood  is  only  a  moral  process  as 
it  produces  the  children  of  good  fortune. 


CHAPTER  Vn 

YOUTH 

Some  time  ago  an  elderly  lady  went  into  one  of 
our  large  toy  shops,  and  finding  much  the  same 
goods  as  in  former  years,  asked,  rather  impatiently, 
"  Do  you  never  have  any  new  toys  ?  "  "  No,  ma- 
dam," answered  the  shopkeeper,  very  humbly, 
**  but  the  children  are  new."  In  developing  a 
scheme  of  education  out  of  a  given  philosophic 
idea,  one  must  feel  at  times  that  one  is  frequently 
offering  the  same  wares.  I  can  only  hope  that  the 
importance  of  the  subject  will  lead  the  reader  to 
bring  to  succeeding  chapters  such  a  renewed  inter- 
est that  he  will  not  be  unpleasantly  conscious  of 
the  repetitions.  I  propose  in  the  present  chapter 
to  apply  the  principles  of  organic  education  to  the 
problem  of  the  high  school. 

Perhaps  no  considerable  body  of  people  have 
found  themselves  able  to  quite  accept  the  scheme 
of  education  for  childhood  which  has  just  been 
outlined.  And  probably  no  considerable  body  of 
people  have  found  themselves  able  to  quite  reject 
it.  However  open  to  criticism  the  scheme  may 
be  in  matters  of  detail,  its  central  position  seems 
to  me  impregnable.    The  wealth  of  the  world  is 


206  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

human.  The  end  of  education  is  an  accomplished 
and  lovable  humanity,  beautiful  men  and  beautiful 
women  and  beautiful  children.  Those  of  us  who 
/  believe  in  culture,  in  the  practical  study  and  pur- 
'  suit  of  perfection,  must  forever  keep  our  creed  in 
mind. 

There  is,  I  am  disposed  to  think,  a  large  body  of 
earnest  people  who  are  deterred  from  the  accept- 
ance of  a  programme  of  organic  education  such 
as  has  just  been  outlined,  by  what  they  regard  as 
practical  obstacles,  but  who  give  their  partial  or 
complete  assent  to  the  theory  of  the  scheme.  They 
agree  very  cordially  with  the  idea  that  childhood, 
that  is,  the  first  fifteen  years  of  life,  should  be  de- 
voted to  organic  work,  to  gymnastic  and  music  and 
manual  training  and  spoken  language,  to  the  culti- 
vation of  those  bodily  accomplishments  and  powers 
upon  which  so  much  of  the  charm  and  the  success 
of  life,  so  much  of  individual  and  social  virtue, 
indisputably  depend  ;  and  they  agree  that  to  early 
youth,  from  the  fifteenth  to  the  nineteenth  birth- 
day, —  the  high-school  period,  in  fact,  —  belongs 
the  formal  elementary  work  of  language  and  sci- 
ence and  mathematics.  But  every  attempt  to  re- 
deem the  education  of  childhood  from  formalism 
and  make  it  a  warm,  human,  organic  process,  has 
met  at  the  outset  with  one  of  those  very  practical 
difficulties  which  could  not  in  kindness  be  ignored. 
There  are,  of  course,  minor  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  equipment  and  suitable  teachers,  and  the  back- 
sliding parents  who  protest  that  their  children  are 


YOUTH  207 

learning  nothing;  but  these  difficulties,  though 
troublesome,  are  all  manageable,  and  in  the  end 
entirely  soluble.  If  well-to-do  people  want  it,  they 
can  have  roomy,  open  halls  in  place  of  stuffy  class- 
rooms; and  simple  benches,  ladders,  bars,  and 
vaulting-horses  in  place  of  expensive  school  desks, 
just  as  they  can  compass  clubs  and  churches  and 
libraries.  And  the  teachers,  too,  are  forthcoming. 
Already  there  are  normal  schools  of  gymnastic, 
and  sloyd  training  schools  for  teachers,  and  ad- 
mirable conservatories  of  music,  and  crowds  of 
delightful  men  and  women  who  believe  in  the  dear 
mother  tongue  as  an  instrument  of  use  and  beauty, 
and  in  the  modern  speech  of  Europe  as  a  means 
of  communication,  and  not  as  a  badge  of  supposed 
culture.  These  sources  of  the  good  article  are  di- 
rectly at  our  hand,  and  they  will  send  us  charm- 
ing  people,  vital,  red-blooded,  just  as  soon  as  we 
want  them.  We  have  only  to  set  the  standard, 
only  to  let  it  be  known  that  human  qualities  — 
charm  and  character  and  accomplishment  —  count 
more  than  a  knowledge  of  facts,  and  the  require- 
ment will  gladly  be  met.  And  they  will  cost  no 
more  than  the  less  joyful  and  less  full-blooded  men 
and  women  who  are  now  doing  their  conscientious 
and  nervous  best  to  make  children  miserable.  Nor 
shall  we  be  needing  an  unreasonable  number  of 
teachers  to  carry  out  this  scheme  of  organic  educa- 
tion. It  is  quite  possible,  for  example,  to  combine 
gymnastic  with  manual  training ;  to  combine  music 
with  English  and  French.     Such  partnerships  are 


208  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

entirely  natural  and  suitable ;  they  would  indeed 
do  much  towards  making  the  life  of  the  teacher 
more  joyful  and  wholesome.  It  is  very  dreary  to 
teach  all  branches  of  human  knowledge,  and  even 
more  dreary  to  teach  only  one  branch,  all  day  and 
every  day.  The  personal  thunder  which  made  a 
first  lesson  so  telling  gets  to  sound  absolutely  in- 
sincere when  given  over  and  over  again  to  succeed- 
ing sections.  There  are,  of  course,  glorious  ex- 
ceptions, but  the  average  specialist  is  a  very  nar- 
row and  unlovable  person,  better  qualified  for  re- 
search work  than  for  leading  eager  spirits  into  the 
holy  places  of  the  intellectual  life.  Nor  is  it  en- 
tirely Utopian  to  expect  that  under  these  broader 
accomplishments  of  the  teacher,  and  giving  to  the 
accomplishments  their  essential  graciousness  and 
charm,  will  be  found  warm  human  hearts  beating 
with  high  moral  and  social  and  artistic  purpose. 
When  we  want  comrades  of  this  character,  in  place 
of  operatives  in  the  factory  of  instruction,  we  shall 
quite  readily  be  able  to  get  them. 

Even  the  parents  are  manageable.  What  they 
all  want  is  the  children's  best  good,  and  this,  too, 
is  what  the  anemic  normal  school  graduates  want. 
Let  us  do  them  both  entire  justice  as  sincere 
seekers  after  perfection,  and  this,  even  though  we 
may  believe  that  they  are  failing  to  see  in  what 
perfection  consists.  It  is,  perhaps,  natural,  in  an 
age  when  children  just  in  their  teens  have  distinct 
views  on  territorial  expansion  and  tarifE  legislation 
and  the  temperance  question,  that  a  devoted  parent 


YOUTH  209 

should  be  appalled  at  the  spectacle  ol  an  ignorant 
child,  however  beautiful  and  accomplished  and 
lovable.  But  in  the  long  run,  the  human  heart  is 
sound.  When  the  organic  training  begins  to  show 
results,  when  the  father  and  mother  notice  that  the 
little  one  is  sturdier  and  more  alert  and  more  vital, 
more  of  an  individual,  more  human,  the  look  of 
glad  recognition  which  they  exchange  with  each 
other  is  the  sign  and  symbol  of  an  approval  which 
may  be  counted  upon. 

I  have  called  these  difficulties  minor  difficulties 
because  they  are  all  so  easily  surmounted.  But  the 
major  difficulty,  the  one  which  may  not  in  kind- 
ness be  ignored,  the  one  which  prevents  the  hu- 
manizing of  the  lower  schools,  and  vetoes  many  a 
wholesome,  red-blooded  experiment  in  education,  is 
really  this  —  when  these  children  of  good  fortune, 
for  such  I  must  regard  them,  come,  at  fifteen  years 
of  age,  to  the  door  of  the  high  school,  they  find  it 
closed.  They  are  not  wanted.  They  do  not  know 
parsing  and  grammar  and  spelling  and  arithmetic 
and  political  geography  and  physical  geography 
and  history  and  civil  government  and  physiology. 
They  are  simply  strong  and  well,  clear-eyed  and 
accomplished,  inquisitive  and  earnest,  full  of  power 
and  promise.  Comparing  the  two  groups  of  util- 
ities, the  high  school  chooses  the  former.  But 
often,  it  chooses  with  a  sigh.  What,  then,  is  the 
excuse  ?  It  is  the  same  excuse  all  along  the  line. 
The  lower  schools  would  be  good  if  the  high 
schools  would  let  them,  and  the  high  schools  would 


210  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

be  good  if  the  colleges  would  let  them,  and  the 
colleges  would  teach  the  knowledge  of  most  worth 
if  the  community  would  let  them,  and  business 
men  would  be  honest  if  it  were  not  for  competi- 
tion, and  finally,  I  suppose,  we  should  all  be  for 
going  immediately  to  heaven  if  we  were  not  for 
stopping  elsewhere.  Apparently,  it  is  a  superior 
madness  which  drives  us. 

Now  this  difiiculty  of  the  lower  schools  is  a  very 
real  and  practical  difficulty,  a  solid  ghost.  We 
may  protest  and  call  names,  and  make  ourselves 
as  disagreeable  as  we  please,  but  the  fact  remains. 
Education  has  become  a  machine,  just  as  politics 
has  become  a  machine,  and  it  is  a  serious  matter 
to  get  out  of  line.  It  would  be  a  veritable  unkind- 
ness  to  submit  children  to  an  educational  process, 
which,  however  perfect  in  itself,  would  leave  them 
in  their  sixteenth  year  quite  stranded,  quite  out  of 
the  educational  current.  And  this,  it  seems  to  me, 
represents  the  very  core  of  the  difficulty.  A  pro- 
cess of  organic  education,  to  be  practical,  —  and 
unless  it  is  practical,  it  is  neither  moral  nor  kind, 
—  must  provide  always  an  open  vista,  must  extend 
continuously  from  birth  to  death,  with  all  doors 
open  and  welcome  everywhere.  But  there  is  a  way 
out,  even  from  this  difficulty. 

I  have  used  one  of  the  most  charming  words  in 
the  language,  Childhood,  to  cover  the  educational 
process  of  the  lower  schools.  Let  us  use  the 
scarcely  less  charming  word,  Youths  to  cover  the 
high-school  period. 


YOUTH  211 

To  keep  life  simple,  sensuous,  passionate,  in  the 
fine  sense  in  which  Milton  used  these  terms,  is  a 
somewhat  more  difficult  task  when  the  life  happens 
to  be  the  life  of  youth  than  when  it  happens  to  be 
the  life  of  childhood.  Youth  is  a  time  of  transi- 
tion, the  passing  of  childhood  into  manhood,  and, 
like  all  transition  times,  it  is  difficult.  There  is  real 
pathos  when  the  boy  starts  out  all  eager  for  some  old- 
time  sport,  and  stops  in  the  middle  of  it.  It  has  lost 
its  zest.  Who  cannot  himself  recall  a  black  day 
when,  for  example,  wading  turned  out  to  be  less  fun 
than  you  thought  it  was,  or  some  old  game  which  you 
were  once  so  keen  for  suddenly  became  uninterest- 
ing. In  youth,  it  seems  to  me,  the  boy  is  by  fits  and 
starts  a  child  and  a  man,  neither  very  thoroughly 
and  neither  for  any  great  length  of  time  together. 
He  is  a  bit  trying  at  times,  —  just  as  you  and  I 
used  to  be,  —  awkward,  uncertain,  perhaps  some- 
what selfish  and  unresponsive.  But  he  needs,  if 
ever  he  needs,  your  best  love  and  sympathy.  He 
is  to  no  one  quite  so  trying  as  he  is  to  himself.  All 
this  conspires  to  make  the  problem  of  the  high 
school  a  problem  of  considerable  nicety.  It  is  a 
time  of  surprises  and  curious  inversions.  The  un- 
satisfactory child  becomes  the  studious  youth ;  or 
the  good  child  the  troublesome  youth.  New  forces 
are  at  work.  Hereditary  traits  begin  to  ripen, 
traits  quite  unheralded  in  childhood.  Many  of 
these  appear  for  the  first  time  with  adolescence,  and 
seem  to  be  intimately  connected  with  the  growth 
and  maturing  of  the  reproductive  functions.     Nor 


212  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

must  we  forget  nor  neglect  the  tremendous  physical 
changes  which  come  with  these  race-conserving 
functions,  changes  which  the  lad  himself  does  not 
understand  and  about  which  he  needs  the  most 
careful  and  reverent  instruction.  In  a  word,  our 
youth,  with  his  growing  strength  and  sense  of 
manly  power,  is  a  bundle  of  tremendous  possibili- 
ties, and  needs  the  utmost  care  and  wisdom  and 
loving  comradeship  that  we  can  give  him. 

But  this  problem  of  the  high  school,  the  educa- 
tional process  of  youth,  cannot  be  forestalled.  It 
can  only  be  met  when  it  comes.  And  this,  after 
all,  is  to  us  the  most  serious  criticism  of  the  older 
education,  and  of  the  older  social  schemes  gener- 
ally, that  they  turn  life  into  a  long  drawn-out  pre- 
paration, with  only  stolen  bits  of  realization  here 
and  there ;  childhood  preparing  for  youth,  youth 
preparing  for  manhood,  manhood  preparing  for  a 
leisure  which  never  comes.  The  free,  bodily,  emo- 
tional life  of  childhood,  genuinely  devoid  of  antici- 
pation, genuinely  taken  up  with  immediate  reali- 
sation, is  the  best  possible  preparation  for  the  more 
intellectual  life  of  youth.  The  simple,  sensuous, 
passionate  life  is  a  matter  of  the  present  moment, 
and  culture  is  a  matter  of  the  present  moment,  and 
we  miss  the  best  of  it  all  if  we  live  either  in  the 
future  or  in  the  past.  So  the  high  school  must 
begin  with  no  requirements.  It  must  allow  child- 
hood to  live  its  full,  free  life,  and  it  must  set  its 
new,  initial  tasks  for  youth.  This  means  practi- 
cally the  open  door,  the  absence  of  all  entrance  ex« 


YOUTH  213 

aminations.  If  childhood  has  been  misspent,  it 's  a 
pity,  but  the  problem  of  youth  still  remains.  And 
childhood  is  least  likely  to  be  misspent  if  it  has 
been  given  over  frankly  and  fully  to  the  occupa- 
tions proper  to  childhood,  to  that  organic  culture 
which  must  be  accomplished  during  the  first  fifteen 
years  of  life.  The  open  door  of  the  high  school 
makes  this  organic  cidture  both  possible  and  wise. 
The  open  door  removes  the  one  really  serious  ob- 
stacle to  the  carrying  out  of  the  programme  out- 
lined in  the  last  chapter,  for  it  provides  the  neces- 
sary outlook,  the  vista  which  gives  continuity  to  the 
educational  process. 

But  the  open  door  of  the  high  school  does  more 
than  this.  It  serves  the  high  school  quite  as  vitally 
as  it  does  the  lower  school.  It  will  in  time  bring 
better  material  to  the  high  school,  children  of  power 
and  promise  ;  and  it  enables  the  high  school  to  per- 
form its  whole  function,  without  obliging  it  to  de- 
cline such  a  large  part  of  it.  If  we  agree  to  this 
conception  of  the  high  school,  that  it  is  the  educa- 
tional process  of  youth,  we  must,  I  think,  feel  that 
as  a  practical  process  it  quite  fails  unless  it  deals 
with  youth,  not  selected  youth,  but  youth  such  as 
we  find  it.  And  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  escape 
this  conception  of  the  high  school,  unless  we  are 
willing  to  deny  the  fundamental  proposition  that 
education  is  the  practical  process  by  which  we  real- 
ize the  social  purpose. 

There  are  American  cities,  I  regret  to  say,  where 
the  passion  for  examining  children  is  so  great  and 


214  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  mistrust  of  the  educational  machine  in  its  own 
effectiveness  is  so  profound,  that  the  door  of  the 
high  school  is  doubly  barred.  There  is  one  exami- 
nation at  the  lower  schools  and  then  a  second 
and  quite  distinct  examination,  covering  the  same 
ground,  at  the  high  schools  themselves ;  and  both 
examinations  are  held  in  the  month  of  June,  in 
apartments  where  the  thermometer  is  frequently- 
above  ninety  degrees  Fahrenheit. 

In  reality,  the  open  door,  instead  of  introducing 
impossibilities,  greatly  simplifies  the  problem  of 
the  curriculum.  It  is  always  easier  to  plan  an 
initial  course  of  study  wisely  than  it  is  to  articulate 
one  course  with  another  course  given  under  totally 
different  conditions.  We  have  been  meeting  with 
much  failure  in  our  high  schools,  building  on  very 
uncertain  foundations  indeed,  because  we  have 
been  taking  our  entrance  examinations  seriously, 
and  have  assumed  that  the  children  know  many 
things  which  they  turn  out  not  to  know.  Particu- 
larly is  this  true  in  the  matter  of  language.  The 
German  teacher  complains  that  he  can  do  little  be- 
cause the  children  do  not  even  know  their  English 
grammar.  The  French  teacher  says  the  same 
thing.  The  Latin  teacher  says  practically  the  same. 
But  the  children  are  supposed  to  know  their  Eng- 
lish grammar,  for  they  have  passed  an  examination 
on  it.  In  assuming  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the 
incoming  youth,  the  boys  and  girls  from  the  lower 
schools,  we  put  ourselves  nearer  to  the  facts  in  the 
case,  and  are  building  on  much  surer  ground. 


YOUTH  215 

It  seems  to  me  that  children  of  fifteen  who  can 
read  and  write  and  count,  and  who  want  to  come 
to  the  high  school,  have  satisfied  the  essential  re- 
quisites for  entrance.  If,  in  addition  to  this,  they 
have  had  the  organic  work  proper  to  childhood, 
then  the  working  out  of  a  satisfactory  course  of 
study  is  not  difficult. 

Under  the  present  social  regime,  the  regime  of 
economic  uncertainty  for  every  man,  woman,  and 
child,  it  is  necessary  that  the  high-school  curriculum 
shall  introduce  an  economic  condition.  It  is  this, 
that  since  changes  in  the  family  fortune  cause  so 
many  children  to  be  withdrawn  from  the  high  school, 
it  is  very  desirable  that  the  most  concrete  and  di- 
rectly useful  studies  shall  be  placed  in  the  early 
part  of  the  four-year  course,  and  also  that,  as  far 
as  may  be,  the  studies  shall  be  condensed  into  rea- 
sonably short  periods  of  time.  In  this  way  the 
children  who  are  obliged  to  drop  out  will  get  some 
substantial  good  as  far  as  it  goes.  It  might  in  any 
case  be  desirable  to  place  the  more  concrete  studies 
first,  and  to  have  a  very  small  number  of  somewhat 
condensed  courses  running  at  any  one  time,  but  we 
may  at  least  hope  that  sometime  it  will  not  be 
necessary  on  just  these  grounds.  If  we  look  upon 
education  as  a  process  covering  the  whole  of  life, 
and  if  the  social  purpose  seem  to  us  the  unfaltering 
pursuit  of  excellence  and  beauty,  we  must  natu- 
rally believe  that  the  educational  process  of  youth 
will  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  main  concerns  of 
society,  and  will  not  be  allowed  to  depend  upon  so 


216  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

uncertain  a  thing  as  the  success  or  failure  of  some 
individual  venture  in  the  world  of  the  market. 
This  first  condition,  the  economic  requirement, 
may,  I  think,  be  looked  upon  as  a  passing  ex- 
pedient. 

And  then  there  are  two  other  conditions  which 
the  high-school  curriculum  is  called  upon  to  satisfy. 
One  is  the  necessity  of  preparing  for  college  so  as 
to  keep  open  the  educational  vista,  and  the  other  is 
the  necessity  of  being  true  to  the  present  moment, 
so  as  to  make  the  school  an  instrument  of  culture 
rather  than  an  obstacle.  Those  who  are  prac- 
tically working  over  this  problem  must,  I  think, 
feel  that  the  two  conditions  just  named  are  essen- 
tially antagonistic,  just  as  the  two  similar  condi- 
tions in  the  process  of  childhood,  the  preparation 
for  the  high  school  and  the  utilization  of  the  pre- 
sent moment,  were  found  to  be  antagonistic.  The 
way  out  is  also  the  same.  It  is  to  confine  one's  self 
to  the  task  of  using  to  the  best  advantage  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  present  moment. 

From  an  organic  point  of  view,  the  process  of 
youth  is  not  so  very  different  from  that  of  child- 
hood. It  is  only  more  subtle,  and  adds  an  increas- 
ingly intellectual  element.  We  have  still  the  same 
unit  organism,  still  the  same  need  for  sound  health, 
keen  sense,  and  usable  muscle,  still  a  dependence 
upon  the  same  source  of  power,  the  emotional  life. 
There  is  no  break  in  the  educational  process,  no 
abrupt  change  in  the  direction  of  its  working. 
Childhood  glides  imperceptibly  into  youth.     Even 


YOUTH  217 

the  profound  physical  changes  which  mark  the 
passing  of  childhood,  and  usher  in  the  coming  of 
manhood  and  womanhood,  are  very  slow  and  grad- 
ual changes. 

All  that  can  be  said  for  small  organic  schools  for 
children  holds  also  for  youth.  A  high  school  of  a 
hundred  scholars  is  vastly  better  than  our  present 
gigantic  establishments,  with  their  two  or  three 
thousand  young  people  gathered  from  the  four  quar- 
ters of  the  town,  and  forced  to  spend  two,  or  even 
three,  hours  a  day  in  the  nervous  and  altogether 
uncompensated  act  of  transit.  The  first  care  of 
the  more  philosophic  education  would  be  to  remove 
this  strain  by  lessening  the  size  of  the  high  schools 
and  increasing  their  number.  These  smaller  schools 
seem  to  me  to  have  every  advantage.  The  build- 
ings themselves  can  be  made  more  humanly  attrac- 
tive ;  the  journey  can  be  made  simply  a  pleasant 
walk ;  the  young  people  can  go  home  for  a  quiet, 
wholesome  dinner ;  they  can  know  their  schoolmates 
better,  and  form  genuine  friendships  with  them ; 
and,  best  of  all,  the  teachers  can  really  know  their 
scholars,  and  can  treat  them  as  individuals.  And 
these  are  all  very  solid  advantages ;  that  is  to  say, 
very  solid  if  you  are  working  for  human  wealth 
rather  than  mere  administrative  mechanism. 

In  some  of  the  larger  city  high  schools,  I  am 
told  by  the  teachers  themselves  that  they  do  not 
even  know  their  scholars  by  name,  but  merely 
by  a  number,  and  this  only  from  the  correspond- 
ence with  a  given  desk  number.     On©  distractingly 


218  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

busy  woman  told  me  that  she  had  eighteen  hundred 
girls  come  under  her  instruction  every  week.  I 
think  that  the  church,  during  the  darkest  night  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  could  offer  nothing  more  gro- 
tesque. Imagine  trying  to  lead  number  57  into 
the  perfect  life,  without  knowing  his  or  her  name, 
and  without  being  able  to  recognize  57  except 
when  the  youth  happened  to  be  at  a  desk  of  that 
number ! 

In  a  somewhat  scattered  community,  it  is  quite 
possible  to  combine  the  high  school  with  the  lower 
school  in  case  it  would  not  make  the  establishment 
too  large,  and  this  would  have  the  advantage  of 
the  more  mixed  and  picturesque  group  of  young 
people  and  children.  Perhaps  the  very  best  thing 
that  a  child  gets  at  school,  in  any  case,  is  just  this 
human  companionship,  the  social  side,  and  it  is  got 
in  larger  measure  as  the  group  is  more  interest- 
ing and  varied.  Let  us  assume,  then,  a  small  high 
school  of  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  children, 
and  a  four-year  course,  and  let  us  inquire  how  the 
day  shall  be  spent  in  order  to  get  the  greatest 
human  good  out  of  it. 

As  with  childhood,  the  educational  ppocess  will 
be  shockingly  ineffective  unless  it  cover  the  twenty 
four  hours. 

Our  lad  must  awake,  as  he  did  when  a  child, 
in  a  clean,  bare,  beautiful  little  room,  with  a  plen- 
tiful supply  of  fresh  air  in  it.  Or,  if  he  have 
younger  brothers,  I  think  he  will  be  the  better 
fellow  if  he   share  a  larger  apartment  with  the 


YOUTH  219 

small  boys,  and  give  them  daily  of  his  love  and 
care.  Some  people  are  born  unselfish,  but  the 
great  majority  of  us  have  to  come  into  this  divine 
virtue  through  the  influence  of  a  compelling  en- 
vironment. If  our  boys  are  selfish,  it  is  because 
we  make  them  so.  I  know  of  nothing  more  odious 
than  a  lusty,  swaggering,  selfish  boy,  —  a  type 
which  one  sometimes  meets  in  America,  and,  I  re- 
gret to  say,  quite  as  frequently  among  the  privi- 
leged classes  as  among  poorer  folk.  And  I  know 
of  nothing  more  lovable  and  interesting  than  a 
strong,  gentle,  unselfish  boy,  —  the  type  which 
alone  represents  human  wealth  and  the  realization 
of  the  social  purpose.  But  whether  odious  or 
lovable,  these  boys  are  what  we  make  them.  They 
are  our  children,  and  it  is  for  us  to  say.  If  we  are 
their  parents  after  the  flesh,  then  it  is  we  who 
have  bestowed  their  heredity.  If  we  are  their 
spiritual  parents,  that  is  to  say,  their  teachers,  it  is 
we  who  decide  their  environment.  I  believe,  my- 
self, that  selfishness  is  the  root  of  all  evil,  the  one 
unforgivable  sin,  and  that  love,  which  is  the  sweeter 
name  for  unselfishness,  is  the  one  salvation.  So  im- 
portant does  it  seem  to  me  to  cultivate  this  human, 
loving  side  of  youth  that  I  would  even  have  the 
two  boys  occupy  the  same  bed.  The  isolation  of  a 
single  brass  cot  is  counted  more  hygienic,  but  if 
both  children  are  clean  and  healthy,  as  they  should 
be,  and  there  is  plenty  of  sweet,  fresh  air  in  the 
room,  as  there  should  be,  the  one  bed  will  be  en- 
tirely wholesome.     The  lad  who  puts  protecting, 


220  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

loving  arms  around  a  small  brother  will  make  the 
stronger  man  and  better  father.  And  the  little 
fellow  himself  will  gain  immensely  from  this  sense 
of  manly  comradeship. 

Our  lad  must  get  up  after  the  sun  does,  when 
the  light  is  clear  and  strong.  He  must  have  a 
vigorous  bath  in  cold  water,  and  must  have  a  few 
moments  of  honest  exercise,  perhaps  one  or  two 
hundred  arm  and  leg  and  trunk  movements,  before 
he  puts  on  any  clothing.  His  dress  and  fare  must 
be  simple  and  sturdy.  The  breakfast  may  not  be 
hurried  through  and  the  family  life  clean  forgot. 
Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  what  a  grave  crime  we 
commit  in  the  name  of  education  when  we  allow 
our  young  people  —  worse  than  that,  when  we  force 
them  —  to  omit  the  graciousness  and  charm  of  home 
life  in  order  to  rush  off  to  school,  and  then  at 
school,  with  most  indifferent  success,  try  to  teach 
them  in  what  the  graciousness  and  charm  of  home 
life  consist?  It  is  very  fine  and  very  beautiful 
when  we  teach  these  young  people  to  admire  heroic 
action,  and  to  sympathize  with  the  human  touches 
in  history  and  literature.  It  is  very  fine,  I  say,^ro- 
vided  we  follow  it  up  with  heroic  action  on  their 
part  and  on  our  part,  and  multiply  the  human 
touches  in  their  lives  and  in  ours.  If  we  omit 
these  practical  acts  of  morality  and  of  good  feel- 
ing, then  the  admiration  and  sympathy  which  we 
have  called  up  make  for  weakness  rather  than  for 
strength.  We  are  producing  sentimentalists  in 
place  of  the  people  of  power.    And  sentimental* 


YOUTH  221 

ists,  we  all  agree,  are  quite  undesirable  and  im- 
moral persons. 

The  disaster  of  teaching  sentiment  without  fol- 
lowing it  up  by  sturdy  action  can  be  seen  in  many 
a  family  and  school.  The  boys  openly  sneer  at 
the  better  things  of  life ;  at  seventeen  they  are 
already  cynics.  The  girls  become  either  insincere 
or  sentimental.  And  again  we  have  ourselves  to 
thank  for  it.  It  is  a  very  responsible  thing  to 
be  "  grown-up,"  for  then  we  become  a  part  of  the 
causation  of  life. 

If  we  place  the  breakfast  hour  at  half  after 
seven,  and  allow  thirty  minutes  for  the  meal  (which 
is  ample,  provided  the  breakfast  is  as  simple  as  it 
ought  to  be),  we  have  still  a  clear  half  hour  before 
the  young  people  need  be  starting  on  their  walk  to 
school.  In  this  thirty  minutes  so  much  could  be 
done  toward  laying  the  foundations  of  a  magnifi- 
cent manhood  and  womanhood,  if  only  the  father  and 
the  mother  had  the  love  and  leisure  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  opportunity.  Many  beautiful  things 
are  possible  in  even  so  short  an  interval,  when  the 
interval  comes  every  day.  The  older  habit  of  hav- 
ing family  prayers  after  breakfast  had  much  to 
commend  it,  so  long  as  the  service  was  simple  and 
sincere,  and  the  daily  life  of  the  parents  made 
them  worthy  to  administer  the  office.  It  were 
much  better  to  abolish  it  than  to  have  it  insincere. 
A  tricky  business  man,  a  sharp  dealer,  will  do  his 
children  less  harm  to  appear  before  them  frankly 
as  a  careless  liver  than  to  play  the  hypocrite. 


222  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

Should  they  meet  goodness  in  later  life  they  will 
be  less  likely  to  mistrust  it. 

Even  the  sharing  of  the  home  tasks,  the  com- 
radeship of  common  effort,  has  a  large  contribution 
to  make  towards  the  educational  process  of  youth. 

At  present,  this  early  part  of  the  day  is  made  as 
devoid  of  thought  and  feeling  as  possible.  The 
morning  meal  is  dreary,  for  all  are  rushing,  and 
after  the  meal  there  is  no  family  life  at  all.  The 
father  is  off,  the  children  are  off;  one  hears  no 
connected  conversation,  no  music,  no  comradery, 
only  hurrying  footsteps  and  the  front  door  bang- 
ing. It  were  much  better  to  let  a  bunch  of  fresh 
flowers  and  the  words  of  good  fellowship  take  the 
place  of  the  half-cooked  beefsteak  and  the  greasy 
fried  potatoes ;  to  have  the  family  life  respected, 
even  if  the  business  life  and  the  school  life  have 
to  be  neglected. 

This  wholly  unideal  and  unnecessary  condition 
of  affairs  can  be  reformed,  as  so  many  of  our  social 
shortcomings  can  be  reformed,  by  the  simple  habit 
of  looking  at  everything  from  a  human  rather  than 
from  a  commercial  standpoint.  The  sacred  days 
may  not  be  desecrated  without  making  us  fright- 
fully poor. 

If  the  boys  and  girls  have  a  sane,  sweet  morning 
at  home,  and  come  to  the  high  school  after  a  brisk, 
wholesome  walk,  the  day  is  well  begun.  It  is  nine 
o'clock,  and  school  opens  with  a  simple  chapel 
exercise,  followed  by  singing  and  the  short  daily 
drill  in  gymnastic.     All  of  thLs  need  not  occupy 


YOUTH  223 

more  than  haK  an  hour,  and  then  from  half  after 
nine  until  half  after  twelve  we  have  three  solid 
hours  for  intellectual  work.  If  we  count  five 
school  days,  this  gives  fifteen  hours  a  week.  They 
may  profitably  be  devoted  to  language  and  mathe- 
matics, throwing  aU  the  science  and  hand-work  to 
the  afternoons.  The  time  may  be  divided  some- 
what as  follows,  —  three  hours  to  English,  four 
hours  to  literature  and  history,  four  hours  to 
French  or  German,  or  Greek  or  Latin,  and  four 
hours  to  mathematics. 

By  giving  a  full  hour  to  each  lesson,  it  is  quite 
possible  to  have  all  the  work  done  in  school,  and 
this  plan  has  such  vital  advantage  that  I  want  to 
ask  your  close  attention  to  it.  In  a  general  way,  it 
may  be  said  that  the  majority  of  boys  and  girls  do 
not  know  how  to  study,  and  that  they  need  much 
more  help  in  this  primary  occupation  of  the  intel- 
lectual life  than  they  do  in  the  much  less  difficult 
and  much  less  important  act  of  reciting.  In  the 
matter  of  English,  for  example,  a  quiet  hour  given 
to  the  writing  of  a  theme,  following  suggestions 
made  by  the  teacher,  and  receiving  direct  help 
when  necessary,  will  come  to  much  more  than  the 
uncertain,  unsystematic  composition  work  done  at 
home.  So  the  hour  of  combined  analysis  and 
etymology,  where  the  work  is  done  on  the  spot, 
and  where  all  participate,  will  lead  in  the  end  to 
a  keener  sense  of  the  function  of  words,  and  a 
nicer  discrimination  in  their  choice,  than  can  be 
gained  by  any  amount  of  recitation  work. 


224  EDUCATION  AND   LIFE 

There  is,  indeed,  so  much  to  be  said  against 
recitation  in  all  departments  that  I  wonder  it 
should  ever  have  been  thought  wise.  As  con- 
ducted at  present,  the  recitation  assumes  a  perfect 
knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  scholar,  and  has  been 
devised  apparently  to  give  him  a  chance  to  display 
this  knowledge  and  to  assure  the  teacher  that, 
however  preposterous  the  original  assumption,  it 
is  nevertheless  true.  It  is,  I  suppose,  the  only 
way  of  quieting  the  doubtful  conscience  of  the 
teacher.  The  natural  result  is  that  the  recitation 
becomes  a  time  for  hiding  ignorance,  and  putting 
forward  the  best  foot  of  knowledge,  a  proceeding 
no  doubt  ornamental,  but  less  certainly  useful. 

If  one  mistrusts  this  account  of  the  matter,  one 
has  but  to  look  at  the  widespread  and  almost  irre- 
pressible habit  of  prompting  to  see  that  this  at  least 
is  the  way  the  boys  and  girls  themselves  look  at 
it,  whatever  may  be  the  theory  in  the  mind  of  the 
teacher. 

The  recitation  method  makes  the  home  the  real 
place  for  gaining  knowledge,  and  the  school  the 
place  for  displaying  it.  We  might  profitably  invert 
this  arrangement,  letting  the  school  be  the  place 
for  gaining  knowledge,  and  the  home  the  place  for 
applying  it.  Another  manifest  evil  is  that  the  stu- 
dents who  really  do  know  the  lesson  and  have  come 
up  to  the  theoretical  expectation  of  the  recitation 
are  obliged  to  listen  to  the  halting  and  garbled 
account  of  it  given  by  the  students  who  do  not, 
an  ordeal  which  is  certainly  very  trying,  so  trying 


YOUTH  225 

indeed  that  if  the  quicker  ones  take  refuge  in  day 
dreams  and  all  sorts  of  wool-gathering,  they  can 
scarcely  be  blamed.  We  older  people  should  do 
the  same,  or  more  likely  still,  we  should  refuse  out 
and  out  to  submit  to  any  such  process.  It  is  a  mis- 
chievous thing  to  sit  in  the  room  with  any  sort  of 
purposeful  noise,  even  a  dvdl  sermon,  and  not  listen 
to  it,  for  in  this  way  the  habit  of  attention  becomes 
quite  impaired.  These  arguments,  taken  together, 
seem  to  me  to  form  an  insurmountable  objection 
to  the  recitation  method. 

The  opposite  method  of  making  the  lesson  hour 
the  time  for  learning  has  everything  to  commend 
it.  It  replaces  apathy  by  a  wholesome  self -activity. 
It  has  particular  advantages  when  we  come  to  the 
study  of  history  and  literature.  By  treating  his- 
tory as  literature,  and  enriching  the  historical  nar- 
rative by  constant  reference  to  contemporary  liter- 
ature, it  is  possible  to  cover  the  ground  much 
more  completely,  to  enlist  in  the  study  a  very  lively 
interest,  and  to  make  a  much  deeper  and  truer 
impression  than  by  any  amount  of  memorizing.  The 
real  value  of  history  study  is  just  this  human  value, 
the  development  of  a  more  complete  and  more  tol- 
erant attitude  toward  life  and  time.  It  ought  to 
bring  out  one's  appreciation  of  the  immense  human 
forces  which  have  gone  towards  making  the  world 
what  it  is.  The  broad  world  outlook  is  what  is 
wanted,  and  this  comes  only  from  the  broad,  sym- 
pathetic reading  of  a  correlated  history  and  litera- 
ture. 


226  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  themes  in  English  may  profitably  have  for 
their  subject  events  or  incidents  touched  upon  in  the 
history,  and  this  writing  of  them  down  in  black  and 
white  will  give  a  sufficient  amount  of  exactness  and 
accuracy.  The  correlation  of  English,  history,  and 
literature  has  the  further  advantage  of  concentrat- 
ing the  attention  upon  one  period,  a  plan  which  pro- 
duces strong,  clear  impressions,  and  saves  us  from 
the  waste  of  a  dissipated  thought.  Four  years  of 
such  careful  work,  seven  hours  a  week,  will  yield 
large  returns  in  the  way  of  an  ability  to  handle 
the  mother  tongue,  and  of  a  wide  acquaintance  with 
the  general  history  of  the  world,  and  with  its  most 
powerful  literature. 

In  the  matter  of  the  historical  sequence,  there  is 
much  to  be  said  on  both  sides,  for  the  chronologi- 
cal order,  and  for  a  partially  inverted  order ;  but 
when  all  the  arguments  are  weighed,  the  advantage 
seems  to  me  to  lie  decidedly  with  the  chronologi- 
cal sequence,  the  study  in  succession  of  Greek  and 
Koman  and  mediaeval  and  modern  history.  In 
addition  to  the  advantage  of  presenting  the  world- 
process  in  the  natural  order,  the  chronological 
sequence  has  the  merit  of  allowing  an  objective 
treatment  of  ancient  history,  while  the  boys  and 
girls  are  still  young,  and  an  easy  passage  to  a  more 
subjective  method  when  we  come  to  the  more  com- 
plex institutional  history  of  our  own  country  and 
time.  The  question  of  sequence,  however,  is  of 
far  less  moment  than  the  broader  principle  of  treat- 
ing the  history  frankly  as  literature,  and  making 


YOUTH  227 

this  whole  group  of  studies  —  English,  history,  and 
literature  —  a  bit  of  human  work  in  which  the 
boys  and  girls  shall  take  a  sincere  interest  and 
delight. 

The  question  of  mathematics  opens  up  a  large 
and  debatable  territory.  Like  the  poor,  the  prob- 
lem of  turning  boys  and  girls  into  even  tolerable 
mathematicians  seems  ever  with  us.  In  four  years, 
four  hours  per  week,  it  is  entirely  possible  to  cover 
plane  and  solid  geometry,  elementary  algebra  and 
plane  trigonometry,  and  to  do  it  well,  even  assum- 
ing, as  we  do  here,  that  the  children  in  the  lower 
schools  have  no  mathematics  beyond  the  elementary 
aumber  work  involved  in  gymnastic  and  sloyd. 
The  most  logical  sequence  seems  to  me  to  be  plane 
geometry,  algebra  up  to  quadratics,  solid  geometry, 
advanced  algebra,  and  plane  trigonometry.  In  the 
majority  of  schools  it  is  customary  to  have  the 
elementary  algebra  precede  the  plane  geometry, 
but  the  arrangement  does  not  seem  to  be  wise. 
Logically  the  geometry  appears  to  deserve  first 
place  as  the  most  graphic  and  comprehensible  of 
all  the  lower  mathematics.  Arithmetic,  as  a  sep- 
arate study,  is  omitted  altogether  from  the  curricu- 
lum of  both  the  lower  school  and  the  high  school, 
and  this  because  it  is  better  taught  by  implication 
in  the  gymnastic  and  sloyd,  and  also  in  the  geo- 
metry and  algebra.  All  the  knotty  problems  of 
arithmetic  can  be  better  solved  by  algebra,  and  all 
the  simple  operations  can  be  taught  more  effec- 
tively as  they  are  met  in  daily  school  experience. 


228  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  method  of  using  the  lesson  hour  for  the 
purpose  of  study  is  quite  as  pertinent  in  mathe- 
matics as  in  the  history-English  group.  An  hour 
devoted  to  mathematics,  not  merely  set  aside  and 
squandered  in  half  work,  but  really  devoted  to 
hard,  concentrated  work,  will  accomplish  much 
when  repeated  four  times  a  week  for  four  years. 
This  devotion  can  best  be  secured  when  the  teacher 
is  right  there  to  help  and  direct  and  encourage. 
A  proposition  in  geometry  clearly  and  slowly 
demonstrated  by  the  teacher  becomes  a  model  in 
both  English  and  mathematics,  and  at  once  sets  a 
high  standard  of  presentation.  The  boys  and  girls 
may  repeat  the  work  the  same  day,  or  if  a  longer 
interval  be  thought  desirable,  on  the  next  lesson 
day,  and  in  repeating  the  demonstrations  learn 
them  quite  as  thoroughly  as  if  they  had  been  droned 
over  at  home.  The  lesson  can  be  made  more  alive 
and  more  helpful,  if  the  chalk  diagrams  are  some- 
times omitted,  and  mental  diagrams  be  made  to 
serve  in  their  stead.  This  method  of  mental  geo- 
metry, with  which  the  reader  is  perhaps  already 
familiar,  is  coming  into  more  general  use,  and  the 
testimony  of  those  who  have  tried  it  is  much  in 
its  favor.  The  demonstration  proceeds  exactly  as 
in  the  older  method,  save  that  the  proposition  hav- 
ing been  stated,  the  necessary  diagram  is  dictated 
by  the  teacher  or  the  student,  and  is  constructed 
by  the  rest  entirely  as  a  mental  diagram.  In  some 
instances  color  is  used.  The  boys  and  girls  are  al- 
lowed to  select  whatever  color  they  please  as  a  back- 


YOUTH  229 

ground,  and  against  this  to  construct  such  lines  as 
will  stand  out  most  clearly.  The  less  imaginative 
students  follow  the  text-book  in  making  use  of  a 
white  background,  with  black  lines.  Others  follow 
my  own  suggestion,  and  having  a  clear  dark  blue 
background,  such  as  the  color  of  the  sky  on  a  fine 
night,  trace  the  lines  of  the  diagram  in  silver  white. 
The  letters  are  the  same  shade  as  the  lines.  The  main 
point  is  that  the  mental  diagram  shall  be  consistent 
and  shall  be  held  tenaciously  throughout  the  entire 
demonstration.  It  is  splendid  mental  gymnastic, 
for  it  cultivates  both  concentration  of  thought  and 
a  vivid,  powerful  imagination.  Any  wool-gather- 
ing, and  one  is  completely  lost.  The  imagination, 
acting  in  connection  with  a  healthy,  well-trained 
organism,  is  the  open  sesame  to  pretty  much  every- 
thing good  that  is  good.  It  is  at  once  the  basis  of 
all  art-work,  of  all  discovery  and  invention,  of  all 
true  morality  and  progress ;  in  a  word,  it  is  essen- 
tial to  the  success  of  daily  life.  To  image  things 
in  stone  and  marble,  on  canvas,  in  thought,  in 
sound,  things  that  never  have  been  imaged ;  to  see 
things  that  never  have  been  seen  ;  to  put  yourself 
in  another's  place,  and  so  learn  charity ;  to  con- 
ceive a  better  society  than  has  yet  been  realized,  — 
all  this  is  the  high  office  of  the  imagination.  As 
lovers  of  perfection,  we  must  cultivate  imagination 
in  our  children  and  in  ourselves,  remembering 
always,  however,  that  it  is  a  force  for  good  only 
when  working  through  a  wholesome  personality. 
In  addition  to  this  increase  in  general  power  and 


230  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

imagination,  the  mental  geometry  is  a  large  practi* 
cal  convenience.  In  solid  geometry,  for  example, 
solids  of  revolution  may  be  generated,  planes  may 
be  passed,  oblique  figures  may  be  righted,  positions 
may  be  changed.  The  whole  space  world  becomes 
fluid  and  obedient  to  the  thought.  Furthermore, 
one  gains  the  power  to  turn  a  flat  working  drawing 
into  machine  or  building,  and  in  these  temporary 
three  dimensions  to  study  the  structure  to  far 
greater  advantage.  If  our  architects  had  this 
power  of  projection,  I  think  we  should  be  spared 
at  least  some  of  the  dreadful  buildings  which  now 
offend  the  eye. 

The  method  of  mental  geometry  is  difficult  at 
flrst,  and  for  certain  orders  of  mind  is  always  dif- 
flcult,  but  when  once  grasped,  it  brings  a  sense  of 
mastery  quite  worth  the  effort. 

There  are  high-school  children  who  are  able  to 
study  three  and  four  languages  at  the  same  time, 
and  the  operation  is  not  uncommon,  but  they  pay 
either  the  price  of  great  superficiality  or  the  price 
of  neglecting  nearly  everything  else.  Either  price 
is  too  great.  In  the  old  university  at  Bologna, 
they  show  you,  with  much  pride,  the  library  of 
Joseph  Mezzofanti,  who  knew  forty-two  languages 
at  the  time  of  his  death.  But  when  you  ask  about 
his  own  contribution  to  life,  it  seems  that  he  had 
nothing  particular  to  say  in  any  of  them.  Imagine 
forty-two  vehicles  moving  solemnly  across  the  field 
of  vision,  each  vehicle  without  passenger  or  cargo. 
The  procession  would  not  be  impressive. 


rOUTH  231 

The  saner  plan,  in  this  matter  of  language,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  those  of  us  who  regard  educa- 
tion as  a  purely  human  process,  is  to  be  as  temper- 
ate in  this  as  one  is  in  food  and  drink.  English 
has  always  the  highest  claim,  since  it  is  the  medium 
of  our  own  daily  expression  and  the  storehouse  of 
our  own  most  cherished  traditions.  But  after  this 
claim  has  been  amply  satisfied,  one  may  profitably 
take  up  a  secon(^  language,  preferably  a  modem  one, 
and  follow  it  to  the  point  of  usability.  There  is 
a  grave  doubt,  which  Hamerton  has  expressed  at 
some  length  in  "The  Intellectual  Life,"  as  to 
whether  the  average  man  can  even  know  two 
languages  intimately,  his  own  and  one  other,  know 
them  so  well  that  he  can  make  them  both  and  at 
the  same  time  a  true  medium  for  his  thought.  This 
doubt  becomes  graver  as  the  list  is  extended.  But 
one  may,  in  four  years,  gain  a  fair  command  of  one 
modem  language  beside  one's  own,  and  this  lin- 
guistic task  is  as  large  as  the  high  school  ought  to 
undertake.  With  lessons  an  hour  long,  the  work  can 
easily  be  accomplished  in  school  and  quite  without 
home  study.  There  are,  doubtless,  many  pleasant 
exceptions,  but  in  general  the  work  will  come  to 
much  more  if  it  is  in  the  hands  of  a  well-equipped 
compatriot.  Those  who  have  watched  the  perform- 
ance of  the  so-called  "  native  "  teacher  —  which  is 
our  somewhat  illogical  way  of  naming  a  foreigner  — 
must  feel,  I  think,  with  me,  that  however  intimate 
his  knowledge  of  pronunciation  and  idiom,  his 
power  to  serve  American  children,  even  in  imparl 


232  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

ing  a  knowledge  of  the  language,  is  much  less 
than  the  power  of  an  able  American  teacher  who  is 
in  touch  with  his  boys  and  girls,  and  understands 
them  in  a  way  the  foreign  teacher  never  can.  It 
stands  to  reason,  too,  that  if  an  American,  who 
makes  it  his  special  business  to  learn  French  or 
German,  cannot  succeed  well  enough  to  teach  it 
acceptably,  then  the  task  of  learning  the  language 
must  be  quite  hopeless  for  average  boys  and  girls, 
who,  at  best,  must  go  in  for  it  somewhat  casually. 
Furthermore,  as  an  agent  of  the  American  social 
purpose,  the  foreign  teacher  is  manifestly  and 
entirely  disqualified.  Neither  the  absolutism  of 
Prussia  nor  the  French  passion  for  la  gloire  has 
any  place  or  welcome  in  America. 

At  half  after  twelve,  the  boys  and  girls  go  home 
for  their  dinner.  In  our  present  high  schools  the 
hours  are  usually  from  nine  o'clock  until  two  or 
three,  with  a  half -hour  intermission  for  a  hurried 
cold  lunch.  This  arrangement  is  made  necessary 
by  the  tremendous  distances,  but  it  is  a  very  bad 
arrangement,  and  is  responsible  for  much  indi- 
gestion and  much  general  lack  of  health.  No  one 
who  has  taught  in  a  high  school  can  be  blind  to 
this  fact.  He  must  have  detected  the  debilitating 
effects  in  his  students,  indeed,  in  himself  as  well, 
and  yet  we  go  on  doing  it  just  as  if  we  did  not 
know  better.  This  thoroughly  unhygienic  plan  is 
a  serious  menace  to  public  health  and  vigor.  In 
the  small  organic  high  school,  near  the  homes 
which  it  is  meant  to  serve,  it  is  entirely  possible  for 


YOUTH  233 

the  boys  and  girls  to  go  home  for  dinner.  The 
intermission  of  an  hour  and  a  half  gives  them  a 
chance  to  have  a  brisk,  healthful  walk,  a  long 
breath  of  outdoor  air,  a  direct  touch  of  sunshine, 
and  a  hot,  nourishing  dinner.  Not  one  of  these 
things  may  be  omitted  without  harm. 

The  afternoon  work  begins  at  two,  and  is  divided 
between  science  and  hand-work.  It  ends  at  four. 
The  occupations  will  be  planned  according  to  the 
tastes  and  aptitudes  of  the  boys  and  girls,  and  will 
depend,  too,  upon  local  conditions  and  resources. 
Ordinarily,  two  afternoons  a  week  will  be  given  to 
laboratory  science  work,  to  physiography,  physics, 
chemistry,  and  physiology,  during  the  successive 
four  years  of  the  course,  the  instruction  being 
touched  by  local  color,  and  made  as  practical  and 
concrete  as  possible.  The  boys  and  girls  will  want 
to  know  about  the  geology  of  the  immediate  local- 
ity, about  the  scientific  principles  involved  in  the 
local  industries,  about  the  physiographic  features 
of  the  surrounding  region,  and  these  are  all  very 
good  things  for  them  to  know  about.  Studied 
broadly,  the  science  of  one's  surroundings  may  be 
made  a  basis  of  all  scientific  study.  The  habit  of 
local  investigation  is  a  great  good.  In  after  life,  if 
the  young  people  move  away  from  that  particular 
locality,  they  will  be  very  prone  to  make  a  study  of 
their  new  environment,  and  come  into  intelligent 
relation  with  it.  In  four  hours  a  week,  it  is  im- 
possible to  attain  anything  like  an  exhaustive 
treatment  of  the  scientific  branches  named,  but  it 


234  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

is  entirely  possible  to  learn  the  large  facts  in  each 
branch,  and  to  come  into  the  habit  of  careful  scien- 
tific thought. 

I  have  placed  the  physiology  last.  From  a  hu- 
man point  of  view,  it  is  vastly  the  most  important 
of  all  the  scientific  studies.  It  ought  to  rest  upon 
a  thorough,  elementary  knowledge  of  physics  and 
chemistry,  in  order  that  it  may  be  scientific.  It 
ought  to  be  studied  by  minds  which  are  reasonably 
mature,  in  order  that  it  may  be  practical  and  sig- 
nificant. Given,  as  it  usually  is,  to  children  of 
fourteen  and  fifteen,  physiology  is  a  stupid  farce. 
Any  one  who  doubts  this  statement  has  but  to  read 
the  examination  papers  in  physiology,  presented 
either  at  entrance  to  the  high  school  or  shortly 
after  admission.  He  will,  I  think,  conclude  with  a 
more  ancient  philosopher  that  we  are  wonderfully 
and  fearfully  made.  But  physiology  may  be  a 
large  social  service  when  taught  to  properly  pre- 
pared boys  and  girls,  already  in  their  nineteenth 
year. 

In  order  to  treat  the  physiology  frankly  and 
helpfully,  it  is  well  at  present,  and  may  be  well 
for  some  generations  to  come,  to  put  the  boys  and 
girls  into  separate  classes.  Ultimately,  when  the 
human  body  becomes  more  beautiful  and  more 
wholesome,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  we  shall  not  be 
ashamed  of  it. 

To  minister  to  the  social  purpose,  the  increase 
of  human  wealth,  the  physiology  must  deal  with 
the  five  phases  in  the  physical  life,  with  the  mys- 


YOUTH  235 

tery  of  birth,  with  the  vital  problems  of  nutrition 
and  growth,  with  the  important  subject  of  repro- 
duction, with  the  grave  question  of  death.  Every 
normal  life  must  meet  these  issues,  and  it  is  the 
office  of  education  to  idealize  and  perfect  all  that 
has  to  do  with  life.  The  instinct  of  reproduction 
is  next  in  importance  only  to  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  It  is  the  race  instinct  of  self-pre- 
servation. Boys  and  girls,  standing  now  on  the 
threshold  of  manhood  and  womanhood,  and  al- 
ready conscious  of  the  working  of  a  new  force, 
need  the  most  careful  and  practical  instruction,  if 
this  inevitable  and  tremendous  force  is  to  spend 
itself  for  social  good  instead  of  social  evil.  They 
must  be  taught  in  all  reverence  and  sweet  minded- 
ness  the  meaning  of  marriage  and  parenthood,  the 
conditions  of  conception  and  birth,  the  hygiene  of 
child  and  adult  life.  And  finally,  since  the  brief 
span  of  a  man's  life  must  be  lived  in  the  constant 
presence  of  possible  death,  our  children  must  be 
brought  up  without  fear  of  death,  without  the  be- 
lief that  death  is  an  evil,  but  rather  in  that  sweeter 
faith  which  grows  out  of  an  experience  of  the 
goodness  of  present  life,  the  faith  that  this  last 
great  mystery,  however  profound,  has  still  at  the 
heart  of  it  the  same  goodness. 

The  remaining  afternoons,  three  in  number,  may 
well  be  given  to  music,  drawing,  and  manual  train- 
ing. It  would  be  a  dissipation  of  thought  to  at- 
tempt all  three  subjects  in  six  hours  a  week.  As 
the  children  have  had  elementary  instruction  in  all 


238  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

of  them,  they  will  have  given  some  indication  of 
taste  and  aptitude.  It  is  well  to  follow  this  indica- 
tion, and  to  arrange  the  work  accordingly.  Sev- 
eral combinations  at  once  suggest  themselves ;  such 
as  a  half  hour  each  afternoon  for  music,  followed 
by  an  hour  and  a  half  of  manual  training  or  of 
drawing.  I  should  myself  be  most  tenacious  of 
the  music,  as  the  art-form  of  the  cult  of  the  Spirit. 
Perhaps  the  wisest  plan  would  be  to  consider  the 
music  permanent,  and  to  let  the  manual  training 
and  drawing  alternate  in  periods  of  several  weeks 
each.  In  most  schools  it  will  be  preferred  to  give 
the  boys  and  girls  different  subjects  in  manual 
training ;  the  boys,  joinery,  wood  carving,  pattern- 
making,  moulding,  ornamental  iron  work,  chipping 
and  filing,  and  machine  construction ;  the  girls, 
joinery,  wood  carving,  sewing,  dressmaking,  mil- 
linery, and  cooking.  The  truer  plan,  I  believe,  is 
to  exclude  the  more  special  forms,  to  look  upon 
the  high  school  as  a  time  for  more  purely  educa- 
tional work,  and  consequently  to  give  the  boys  and 
girls  precisely  the  same  course.  This  general 
course  might  profitably  include  joinery,  wood  turn- 
ing, wood  carving,  clay  modeling,  plain  sewing, 
plain  cooking,  and  a  practical  course  in  nursing 
and  hygiene.  The  present  manual  training  schools 
are  much  too  technical,  more  touched  by  the  needs 
of  the  market  than  by  human  needs.  This  techni- 
cal education  is  exceedingly  valuable,  but  it  should 
come  later.  For  the  same  reason,  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  drawing  should  be  largely  freehand  line 


YOUTH  237 

and  color  work,  and  should  include  only  the  ele- 
ments of  mechanical  and  architectural  drawing. 

A  school  day,  spent  in  this  rational  manner,  and 
leaving  plenty  of  time  for  a  wholesome  home  life, 
might  easily  be  repeated  six  times  a  week  without 
being  a  burden.  But  the  one  free  day  is  worth 
keeping  for  a  different  reason.  It  offers  a  fine 
opportunity  for  an  enlargement  of  experience  and 
for  the  doing  of  purely  voluntary  tasks.  It  can 
best  be  spent  out  of  doors,  on  some  well-planned 
expedition  on  foot  or  on  the  wheel.  For  this  pur- 
pose good  weather  is  required,  and  so  it  is  far 
wiser  to  make  the  holiday  a  movable  feast.  It  is 
also  better  to  have  it  come  in  the  middle  of  the 
week,  since  Sunday  is  a  sufficient  break  between 
the  ends.  By  making  the  holiday  on  Wednes- 
day, or,  in  case  of  storm,  the  first  clear  day  after 
Wednesday,  both  of  these  conditions  are  as  well 
fulfilled  as  our  uncertain  American  weather  will 
permit.  The  plan  seems  to  me  far  wiser  than  the 
mechanical  one  of  having  the  holiday  always  on 
a  Saturday.  In  bad  weather,  and  especially  in 
winter,  the  young  people  are  much  better  off  in 
school  than  anywhere  else,  and  every  schoolboy 
knows  how  much  more  likely  it  is  to  rain  on  Satur- 
day than  on  any  other  day  of  the  week. 

If  the  weather  is  persistently  stormy,  it  may  be 
wise  to  devote  one  school  day  in  each  week  to 
voluntary  occupations,  letting  the  boys  and  girla 
spend  the  time  in  library  or  classroom,  laboratory 
or  workshop,  wherever  they  are  most  interested. 


238  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

or  wherever  they  may  feel  themselves  a  little  defi- 
cient. Another  important  office  of  the  free  day 
is  to  help  discover  to  the  boys  and  girls  those 
deeper  interests  on  which  the  subsequent  special 
work  of  life  is  to  be  founded.  Remember  that  life 
in  its  larger  aspects  is  as  yet  untasted,  and  they 
have  small  data  for  choice  of  subsequent  vocation. 
At  present,  we  have  no  free  day.  We  have  a 
nominal  holiday,  but  so  great  is  the  pressure  of 
school  life  that  conscientious  students,  as  I  know 
very  well,  use  the  day  to  catch  up  in  their  work ; 
and  in  some  institutions  this  so-called  spare  timje 
is  coimted  in  when  allotting  the  tasks  of  the  week. 
A  word  about  Sunday,  and  its  influence.  My 
own  rule  for  the  day  is  very  simple.  It  is  this ; 
never  do  anything  on  Sunday  so  stupid  that  you 
would  not  be  willing  to  do  it  on  Monday,  and 
never  do  anything  on  Monday  so  wicked  that  you. 
would  not  be  willing  to  do  it  on  Sunday.  On  the 
whole  I  think  this  is  a  pretty  good  rule,  for  it  is 
practical,  and  it  is  founded  on  the  spirit  of  the 
newer  commandment.  It  cuts  out  dull  sermons, 
and  squeaky  organs,  and  singing  through  your  nose 
out  of  tune,  and  ugly  churches,  and  sanctimonious 
books  and  phrases,  and  cant  and  hypocrisy,  and 
much  else  that  is  unbeautif  ul  and  irreligious  in  our 
present  mode  of  spending  Sunday.  And  from  the 
occupations  of  Monday,  it  quite  as  resolutely  cuts 
out  sharp  bargaining  and  doubtful  business  prac- 
tices, and  degenerate  books  and  unclean  plays,  and 
much  else  that  is  a  human  desecration.     It  seems 


YOUTH  239 

to  me  a  great  advantage  for  children  to  go  to 
church  on  Sunday,  provided  the  church  is  made  a 
delight  instead  of  a  duty,  and  provided  the  cler- 
gyman is  a  good  man.  One  finds  sacerdotalism, 
formalism,  dogmatism,  smooth  phrases  in  the  pul- 
pit, but  one  does  not  always  find  goodness.  I  have 
had  a  saintly  clergyman  tell  me  in  all  seriousness 
that  he  regarded  the  Quakers  as  worse  than  the 
heathen,  because  they  had  had  the  blessed  sacra- 
ment offered  to  them  and  had  refused  it,  —  the 
Quakers,  with  their  sweet,  gentle,  just  lives!  I 
should  not  want  one  of  my  boys  to  come  under 
such  influence.  The  very  air  and  sunshine  would 
be  a  rebuke.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  parent  ought 
to  scrutinize  with  great  care  the  quality  of  the  cler- 
gymen who  presume  to  minister  to  the  spiritual 
needs  of  his  children.  And  he  ought  to  scruti- 
nize with  even  greater  care  the  curious  material 
which,  with  the  best  intention  in  the  world  and 
frequently  the  worst  preparation,  offers  itself  for 
service  in  the  Sunday-school.  To  permit  persons 
to  teach  in  the  name  of  God  on  Sunday,  who  would 
not  be  permitted,  in  the  name  of  the  town,  to 
teach  during  the  week,  is  a  shocking  form  of  irre- 
ligion.  Church -going  and  Sunday-school-going 
are  far  from  being  an  unmixed  good.  They  may 
even  be  the  occasion  of  moral  and  religious  harm. 
The  same  judgment  must  be  applied  to  the  church 
as  to  the  other  institutions  of  society.  Morality 
requires  the  successful  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends,  requires  that  we  be  causationists,  that  we  be 


240  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

practical.  A  church  which  does  not  redeem  the 
daily  life  stands  as  much  condemned  as  a  school 
which  does  not  educate.  Both  fail  to  serve  the 
social  purpose,  the  increase  of  human  wealth,  and 
must  be  supplanted  by  something  better. 

But  the  church,  like  the  school,  may  be  idealized, 
may  be  redeemed  from  commercialism,  from  insin- 
cerity, from  formalism.  The  church,  working  with 
the  school  and  the  family,  teaching  what  they  teach, 
the  high  destiny  of  man,  the  splendor  of  life,  the 
communion  of  the  divine  spirit,  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  may  offer  a  service  of  such  inspiration 
and  such  compelling  beauty,  that  it  will  be  of  all 
possible  ways  of  spending  Sunday  morning  the 
very  best  way  for  those  who  seek  the  perfect  life. 
But  the  church  should  be  near  the  home.  If  the 
children  cannot  walk  there,  or  cannot  get  there  by 
an  easy,  pleasant  drive,  they  had  much  better  stop 
at  home.  If  the  near  church  is  unideal  and  un- 
suitable, two  courses  are  open.  It  may  be  avoided, 
or  one  may  throw  one's  self  into  it  and  try  to  make 
it  genuinely  helpful  to  one's  own  children  and  to 
the  community  at  large.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
add  that  if  this  latter  plan  allows  any  promise  of 
success,  it  is  socially  the  nobler.  The  rest  of  Sun- 
day ought  to  be  spent  simply  and  naturally,  with 
wholesome  games  and  outdoor  sports,  with  reading 
aloud  and  good  comradeship.  The  worst  possible 
use  of  the  day  is  to  waste  it,  and  this  one  does 
when  one  gives  one's  self  over  to  any  sort  of  aim- 
less and  incoherent  occupation. 


YOUTH  241 

The  school  day  ends  at  four,  and  the  boys  and 
girls  leave  the  building  with  free  hands  and  free 
hearts.  There  are  no  lunch  baskets  and  no  books 
to  be  carried  home ;  better  still  the  day's  school 
work  is  done,  and  there  are  no  tasks  to  burden  the 
spirit  and  interfere  with  the  simple  pleasures  and 
duties  of  the  home  life.  This  freedom  to  live  the 
fuller  and  more  joyous  life,  to  render  unworried 
service  to  the  busy  mother  and  father,  to  enjoy 
their  comradeship  in  serenity  and  leisure,  to  take 
the  free  playtime  of  the  late  afternoon  without 
uncomfortable  pricks  of  conscience,  all  this  would 
quite  justify  the  plan  of  using  the  school  for  the 
place  of  learning,  were  it  not  already  justified  on 
other  grounds.  Save  in  the  very  heart  of  winter, 
the  period  from  four  to  six  is  a  rare  time  for  all 
sorts  of  outdoor  delights.  The  earth  is  warmed 
with  the  day's  sunshine ;  the  wind  has  a  habit  of 
going  down  with  the  sun ;  the  lights  are  soft  and 
beautiful ;  the  illuminated  walls  and  long  slanting 
shadows  add  a  touch  of  poetry  to  the  dullest  land- 
scape. One  can  imagine  no  finer  playtime  for 
boys  and  girls  and  for  older  people  as  well.  It  is 
a  sacrilege  that  all  these  glories  pass  for  the  greater 
part  unobserved  ;  that  day  after  day  the  sun  sinks 
into  the  golden  west  without  causing  a  genuine 
thrill  in  thousands  of  waiting  human  hearts ;  that 
one  by  one  the  stars  take  their  places  in  the  nightly 
drill  of  heaven,  and  the  moon  pours  out  her  almost 
spiritual  light,  and  we  remain  insensible. 

It  is  an  easy  matter  to  remedy  this.     The  rem- 


242  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

edy  is  to  live  and  work  in  the  present  moment,  and 
to  keep  quite  sacred  the  breathing  spaces  when  we 
may  enjoy  nature  and  enjoy  one  another.  This 
free  playtime,  devoid  of  care  and  worry,  devoid  of 
the  shadow  of  unfinished  tasks,  has  as  much  to 
teach  the  children  and  young  people,  as  much  in- 
deed to  teach  us  older  ones,  as  the  more  serious 
work  of  the  school  and  the  profession. 

In  every  well-equipped  high  school  there  will  be 
a  swimming  tank  and  gymnasium,  open  on  alter- 
nate afternoons  to  the  boys  and  girls,  and  here  in 
stormy  weather  they  will  have  a  chance  to  take 
sufficient  exercise  to  keep  them  in  the  best  of 
health.  They  ought  all  to  have  learned  to  swim 
several  years  earlier,  but  should  this  duty  have  been 
omitted,  the  deficiency  must  be  made  good  at  once. 
Not  only  is  the  swimming  one  of  the  most  perfect 
forms  of  physical  exercise,  but  in  the  course  of  the 
busy,  stirring  lives  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  all  these 
boys  and  girls  are  going  to  live,  a  knowledge  of 
how  to  swim  may  save  their  own  or  another  life. 

Then,  afterwards,  comes  the  preparation  of  the 
evening  meal,  and  later,  the  partaking  of  it.  If 
the  day  has  been  well  spent,  the  people  who  gather 
around  the  board  are  not  tired  out  and  silent. 
They  are  still  companionable.  They  have  the  sat- 
isfaction which  comes  from  worthy  tasks  well  per- 
formed. There  is  a  pleasant  sense  of  rest  and 
peace,  the  quiet  interchange  of  the  day's  experi- 
ences. This  evening  meal,  after  a  busy,  happy 
day,  may  be  a  bit  of  genuine  fine  art.     At  its  best, 


YOUTH  243 

it  13  a  simple  meal,  but  it  lends  itself  to  artistio 
treatment.  It  were  well  to  begin  with  the  illumi- 
nation, —  "  Let  the  lower  lights  be  burning."  It 
were  well  to  bring  out  the  silver  candlesticks  if 
you  have  them,  and  the  best  china,  for  you  will 
never  be  supping  more  worthy  guests.  Remember, 
you  are  entertaining  the  children  of  the  state,  the 
future  men  and  women  of  the  commonwealth,  the 
cup-bearers  of  all  progress.  And  it  were  well  for 
such  guests  as  these  to  bring  out  the  best  talk,  the 
noblest,  the  wittiest,  the  most  entertaining,  the  most 
inspiring,  and  to  encourage  your  guests,  the  young 
people  and  the  children,  to  give  of  their  best,  too. 
You,  perhaps,  recall  the  incident  of  the  French  ser- 
vant, who  whispered  to  her  mistress,  the  hostess,  — 
"Another  anecdote,  madame,  the  roast  is  burned." 
A  social  man  can  do  almost  everything  in  life  quite 
alone,  with  some  degree  of  success,  except  to  eat 
alone,  and  this  social  instinct  is  well  worth  culti- 
vating in  our  young  people.  It  is  wise  to  bear  in 
mind  that  man  was  a  social  animal  before  he  was 
human,  and  that  his  becoming  human  is  perhaps  a 
direct  result  of  his  being  social.  But  this  social 
instinct  can  nowhere  else  be  so  successfully  culti- 
vated as  right  here  in  the  home  circle.  In  the 
family  group,  with  the  father  and  mother  and  the 
grandparents  and  the  little  ones,  our  high  school 
boys  and  girls  are  very  charming,  but  they  are 
much  less  charming,  and  much  less -successful,  when 
they  attempt  society  by  themselves.  It  is  apt  to  be 
frivolous  and  self-conscious,  even  insincere,  for  it  is 


244  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

founded  on  such  inadequate  social  experience.  It  is 
the  sort  of  society  which  wears  itself  out  in  a  very- 
few  years,  and  leaves  men  and  women,  not  yet  in 
their  prime,  quite  stranded  and  cast  aside.  One  sees 
much  of  this  immature  society  in  America,  and  it 
is  not  desirable.  The  best  social  success  does  not 
come  to  youth,  for  youth  has  not  yet  a  sufficiently 
serious  contribution  to  offer,  to  make  the  best  soci- 
ety possible ;  it  comes  to  men  and  women  who  have 
spent  their  youth  in  quieter  and  more  sheltered 
ways.  Society  is  strengthened  by  every  act  of 
temperance  ;  by  keeping  children,  children  ;  and 
youth,  youth.  The  more  ideal  plan  is  to  have  no 
formal  "  coming  out,"  with  its  early  extinguish- 
ment, but  into  this  braver  and  more  inclusive  soci- 
ety to  have  one  entered  for  the  rest  of  life. 

Every  evening  meal,  however  simple,  may  be  a 
veritable  feast  if  love  spread  the  table  and  clever- 
ness serve  it.  And  then,  afterwards,  comes  the 
delightful  home  evening,  its  talk  and  music,  its 
reading  aloud  and  its  games,  an  evening  quite 
unshadowed  by  school  tasks  of  any  kind,  and 
given  over  in  frank  joyousness  to  social  inter- 
course and  pleasure.  And  now  it  is  nine  o'clock, 
—  or  half  after ;  the  day  is  done,  and  our  young 
people  must  be  off  to  bed.  The  beauty  sleep  must 
all  be  got  before  midnight. 

To  be  successful,  the  educational  process  of 
youth  must  provide  for  the  wholesome  life  of  the 
body  and  the  mind  and  the  heart ;  it  must  preserve 
the  simple,  sensuous,  passionate  life  in  all  its  purity 


YOUTH  246 

and  integrity ;  it  must  avoid  premature  manhood 
and  womanhood ;  it  must  include  all  youth ;  it 
must  cover  the  entire  twenty-four  hours;  it  must 
limit  itself  resolutely  to  the  present  moment.  If 
the  programme  outlined  in  this  chapter  does  all 
these  things,  then  it  is  the  true  process  of  the 
social  purpose,  and  deserves  our  most  loyal  alle- 
giance. Each  change  we  make  in  the  programme 
must  be  along  these  lines,  and  must  be  for  the 
increase  of  our  total  human  wealth. 


CHAPTER  Vni 

HOLIDAYS 

One  hears  much  talk  ia  America  about  our  not 
having  enough  holidays,  and,  by  way  of  argument, 
one  is  asked  to  regard  the  care  and  pressure  and 
nervous  prostration  all  too  visible  in  the  daily  pro- 
cession of  our  social  life.  So  convincing  is  the 
argument  that  I,  for  one,  have  been  wholly  con- 
verted by  it,  and  quite  seriously  would  be  for 
making  every  day  a  holiday.  Life  is  so  great  a 
possession,  so  unending  a  procession  of  delightful 
possibilities,  that  each  day  ought  to  be  a  new  glad- 
ness, each  night  a  fresh  benediction.  It  is  alto- 
gether a  monstrous  thing  to  make  it  otherwise,  to 
admit  into  any  day  a  spirit  less  joyful  and  radiant 
than  the  spirit  of  the  best  holiday.  Is  love  not 
immortal ;  is  beauty  not  a  reality ;  is  space  not  the 
home  of  angelic  hosts ;  is  charity  not  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world ;  are  men  not  our  brothers  ;  is 
the  best  not  our  destiny  ?  To  realize  this,  to  real- 
ize, that  is  to  say,  the  splendor  of  life,  would  be  to 
make  each  day  a  veritable  holiday. 

However,  a  holiday  is  not  a  thing  to  waste.  It 
is  a  day  to  make  the  very  most  of.  At  best,  it  is 
all  too  short.     But  at  present,  holiday-making  in 


HOLIDAYS  247 

America  is  not  a  very  beautiful  operation.  It  con- 
sists for  the  most  part  of  lounging  and  rowdyism 
and  dissipation  and  forced  fun.  The  human  spirit, 
bowed  down  by  care  and  pressure  and  nervous 
prostration  and  illness,  cannot  at  once  respond  to 
the  glad  spirit  of  the  new  day.  It  can  only  lounge 
or  shout.  So  unideal  is  our  popular  holiday-making 
that  at  such  times  gentler  people  do  not  stir  abroad, 
and  on  such  a  holiday,  one  is  tempted  to  wish,  not 
that  we  had  more  of  them,  but  rather  that  we  had 
none  of  them  at  all.  To  make  a  holiday  one  must 
have  the  true  holiday  spirit,  and  this  is  not  subject 
to  command,  —  has  a  way  of  refusing  to  act  inter- 
mittently. To  be  successful,  our  holiday-making 
must  be  continuous,  —  every  day  must  be  a  holi- 
day. And  every  day  might  be  if  we  were  bent  on 
carrying  out  the  social  purpose  and  went  in  unre- 
servedly for  human  wealth. 

I  do  not  propose  to  stop  the  wheels  of  enterprise, 
but  only  to  have  them  spin  more  merrily  and  more 
sanely.  The  work  of  the  world  would  get  done 
easily  enough,  even  if  life  were  an  unending  holi- 
day, that  is,  all  the  work  that  is  worth  doing,  for, 
rightly  handled,  work  is  the  greatest  fun  of  all  the 
fun  that  is  ;  only  you  must  bring  to  it  good  health 
and  high  spirit  and  a  love  for  the  beautiful ;  and 
the  work  itself  must  be  worthy,  not  cheap  and 
nasty  stuff,  unnecessary  toil  that  one  can  take  no 
interest  in,  but  sturdy,  honest,  manly  work  that 
you  can  put  your  heart  into,  and  do  because  you 
have  chosen  to  do  it,  and  would  rather  do  just  that 


248  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

particular  thing  than  anything  else  in  the  whole 
round  world. 

I  say  all  this  because  I  believe  it  to  be  true, 
or,  rather,  because  I  know  it  to  be  true.  I  choose, 
myself,  to  work,  sometimes  to  work  very  hard  in- 
deed, so  that  the  friendly  doctor  calls,  "  Temper- 
ance ; "  but  it  is  self-chosen,  delightful  work.  When 
you  do  what  you  want  to  do,  honestly  and  squarely, 
it  does  not  at  all  deserve  to  be  called  work,  but  is 
the  most  splendid  sort  of  play,  and  every  day  is  a 
holiday.  Now  I  am  obliged  to  believe  that  in  this 
compelling  desire  of  mine  for  some  form  of  grati- 
fying activity,  I  am  not  at  all  unique,  but  am  to 
that  extent  simply  wholesome  and  normal.  For  I 
see  hundreds  of  men  and  women  all  around  me, 
friends,  acquaintances,  strangers,  doing  precisely 
the  same  thing,  working,  not  from  the  pressure  of 
want,  but  in  obedience  to  that  inner  necessity 
which  makes  activity  a  condition  of  health  and 
happiness.  We  joyous  workers  neither  deserve 
nor  ask  any  credit  for  all  this  activity.  It  is  true 
that  we  plume  ourselves  a  little  bit  on  our  wis- 
dom, our  wisdom  in  knowing  how  to  be  happy ;  but 
that  is  all.  We  might  give  up  our  work,  and  join 
the  crowd  of  overfed,  idle  folk  that  you  may  meet 
any  winter  down  in  Florida,  or  on  the  Riviera,  but 
we  have  no  desire  to  be  so  sadly  bored.  We  pre- 
fer the  fun  of  life,  the  splendid,  self-chosen,  useful, 
welcome  work. 

This  answer  only  hints  at  how  the  pleasant 
work  of  the  world  would  get  done.  It  seems  to 
quite  leave  out  of  sight  the  many  hideous  tasks 


HOLIDAYS  249 

which  now  cast  their  shadow  over  the  daily  life  of 
civilization.  This  is  entirely  true,  but  the  inner 
necessity  is  still  adequate  to  all  social  demands. 
The  hideous  tasks  are  unnecessary,  and  had  much 
better  be  left  undone.  There  are  sad  tasks,  like 
burying  our  dead ;  there  are  homely  tasks,  like 
providing  food  and  shelter  and  clothing ;  there  are 
laborious  tasks,  like  hewing  wood  and  drawing 
water;  there  are  exacting  tasks  involved  in  con- 
struction and  transportation,  and  in  investigation 
of  all  kinds.  But  one  may  lend  a  willing  hand  and 
do  one's  sturdy,  manly  share  in  all  necessary  work, 
and  still  decline  to  be  an  undertaker  or  a  head- 
waiter  or  a  contractor  or  a  shop-keeper.  There 
U  no  trace  of  merit  in  doing  unworthy  work  for 
unworthy  people,  or  extremely  disagreeable  work 
for  corresponding  hire.  Large  dividends  are  won 
Vy  all  sorts  of  hideous,  brutal,  fatal  work,  but  that 
never  produces  human  wealth,  never  renders  loyal 
service  to  the  social  purpose.  If  we  described 
it  at  all  in  the  plain  speech  of  our  own  philoso- 
jihy,  we  should  have  to  call  such  activity  by  a 
very  ugly  name.  We  should  have  to  call  it  treach- 
ery to  the  social  purpose,  treachery  on  the  part  of 
those  who  organize  such  work,  and  treachery  on  the 
part  of  those  who  do  it.  As  a  loyal  citizen  of  the 
eocial  commonwealth,  I  must  oppose  this  false  ac- 
tivity to  the  utmost  of  my  power.  I  must  call  it 
by  its  right  name.  I  must  make  it  less  and  less 
possible.  I  must  fight  it  on  every  side.  And  the 
great  and  ever  available  weapon  of  attack  is  through 
the  channel  of  men's  ideas.     This  turning  of  our 


250  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

legitimate,  life-long  holiday  into  days  of  human 
drudgery  will  quite  disappear  from  off  the  face  of 
the  earth  as  soon  as  we,  the  workers,  will  it  to  be 
80,  as  soon  as  we  declare  once  and  for  all  against 
this  false  activity,  and  in  favor  of  necessary,  whole- 
some, beautiful  work. 

This  little  preface  is  meant  to  lead  up  to  the 
question  of  school  holidays. 

At  the  present  time,  that  is  to  say,  during  these 
years  of  grace  at  the  opening  of  the  twentieth 
century,  our  private  high  schools  are  in  session  for 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  days  out  of  the  three 
hundred  and  sixty-five  days  in  the  year,  and  our 
public  high  schools  for  about  one  hundred  and 
eighty  days.  The  private  schools  begin  work  about 
the  first  of  October.  They  have  two  days'  holiday 
xt  Thanksgiving,  two  weeks  at  Christmas,  two  weeks 
at  Easter,  and  various  single  days  throughout  the 
J  ear.  They  stop  work  very  early  in  June,  giving  al- 
most four  months'  holiday  in  summer.  As  a  rule, 
the  more  expensive  the  school,  the  shorter  the  total 
session.  The  public  schools  have  about  the  same 
holidays,  but  somewhat  shortened.  They  are  in  ses- 
sion about  one  half  the  total  year. 

These  facts  are  familiar  to  all  persons  who  know 
aiiything  about  our  metropolitan  school  systems, 
and  particularly  familiar  to  those  parents  who  are 
much  puzzled  to  dispose  of  their  children  wisely 
during  the  long  periods  of  time  when  there  is  no 
school.  But  the  facts  are  worth  reciting  when  we 
come  to  consider  the  problem  of  holidays.     We 


HOLIDAYS  251 

should  also  add  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  this  very 
short  school  session,  many  children  break  down 
under  it  completely,  and  must  be  withdrawn,  while 
of  those  in  nominal  attendance  a  large  percentage 
are  always  absent  on  account  of  illness  and  for 
other  causes.  In  Massachusetts,  the  actual  attend- 
ance is  143.5  days  out  of  180  days. 

All  of  these  facts,  taken  together,  present  con- 
siderable material  for  thought.  And  this  material 
is  increased  when  we  come  to  regard  the  teachers. 
Although  working  on  half  time,  as  it  were,  com- 
pared to  the  other  vocations,  and  occupied  only 
half  the  year,  teachert,  as  a  class,  present  less 
than  normal  strength  and  vigor.  So  common  is 
the  expression,  "a  broken-down  teacher,"  that  it 
hardly  attracts  one's  attention,  and  arouses  only  a 
very  faint  sympathy,  the  sort  of  sympathy  that  we 
give  to  old  age  and  other  inevitable  calamities. 

To  one  who  regards  education  as  a  practical 
process  by  which  we  realize  the  social  purpose,  it 
would  seem  that  the  process  is  singularly  inter- 
mittent to  be  in  activity  less  than  one  quarter  of 
the  day,  and  less  than  one  half  the  year.  If  the  in- 
quiry were  not  on  the  face  of  it  entirely  absurd,  one 
would  be  tempted  to  ask  whether  the  social  purpose 
is  likewise  intermittent,  a  fever  which  comes  and 
goes,  and  leaves  the  patient  quite  incapable  of  ef- 
fort during  fully  three  quarters  of  the  waking  year. 

Or,  it  may  be  that  the  social  purpose  is  divided 
between  the  school  and  the  home,  giving  the  lion's 
share,  that  is,  seven  eighths  of  the  total  year,  to  the 


252  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

home.  This  is  a  practical  view  of  the  matter,  but 
it  is  not  carried  out  with  any  degree  of  practicality, 
that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  carried  out  morally.  If 
this  very  big  lion's  share,  the  share  of  a  very  roar- 
ing lion,  belong  properly  to  the  home,  it  would 
seem  that  by  far  the  more  important  part  of  edu- 
cation consists  in  instructing  the  home,  and  that 
a  true  state  normal  school  ought  to  devote  seven 
eighths  of  its  time  to  the  enlightenment  of  fathers 
and  mothers,  and  one  eighth  to  the  narrower  peda- 
gogy of  the  school.  But  this  is  not  done,  and,  as 
we  all  know,  even  in  the  schools  themselves,  the 
question  of  parenthood  and  its  tremendous  social 
duties  is  hardly  touched  upon  at  all.  That  is  to 
say,  we  leave  this  immense  slice  of  the  educational 
process  quite  unprovided  for,  leave  it  to  young, 
inexperienced,  unguided,  often  wholly  uncultivated, 
persons,  and  the  result  is  our  present  mixed  pro- 
gramme of  experiment  and  neglect,  —  largely  neg- 
lect. Now,  whether  we  so  esteem  it  or  not,  the 
educational  process  is  bound  to  cover  the  whole 
twenty-four  hours.  Even  in  sleep  there  is  no  es- 
cape.    Cause  and  effect  are  busily  at  work. 

"  Tliat  which  ye  sow,  ye  reap.     See  yonder  fields ! 
The  sesamnm  was  sesamum,  the  corn 
Was  corn.     The  silence  and  the  darkness  knew  I 
So  is  a  man's  fate  bom." 

And  the  distressing,  or,  perhaps,  the  wholesome, 
part  of  it  is  that  in  the  final  counting  up  of  results, 
ignorance  is  no  extenuation.  The  boy,  sleeping  in 
a  vitiated  atmosphere,  eating  improper  food,  wear- 


\ 


HOLIDAYS  263 

ing  unsuitable  clothes,  reading  unfit  books,  a8so< 
dating  with  vulgar  companions,  falling  into  vicious 
habits,  must  reap  the  corresponding  harvest,  how- 
ever ignorant  he  or  his  parents.  By  so  much  is 
the  social  purpose  defeated  and  the  educational 
process  made  of  no  avail.  And  we  must  remem- 
ber that  it  is  not  alone  the  social  sacrifice  of  one 
individual  man.  His  influence  and  his  children 
must  also  be  counted. 

Now  this  social  failure  of  the  home  is  so  man- 
ifest, and  the  recognition  of  it  so  widespread,  that 
on  all  sides  one  sees  the  beginning  of  a  movement 
to  provide  rational  occupation  for  children  during 
at  least  a  part  of  their  large  holiday  time.  On 
Saturdays,  one  hears  of  morning  classes  in  wood- 
work or  sewing  or  cooking  or  gymnastic;  one 
meets  a  young  college  man  with  a  troop  of  lively 
boys,  bent  on  a  day's  outing  in  the  country.  Dur- 
ing the  long  summer  vacation,  the  metropolitan 
boards  of  education,  even  the  more  intelligent 
towns,  especially  in  New  England,  are  establishing 
the  so-called  vacation  schools  on  the  very  spot  and 
in  the  very  buildings  declined  for  summer  usage  by 
the  older  education ;  while  for  those  who  can  afford 
to  pay  for  them,  numerous  summer  camps  for  boys, 
and  now  even  for  girls,  are  springing  up  in  the 
mountains  and  at  the  seashore.  Both  of  these 
movements,  for  the  rescue  of  Saturday  and  for  the 
rescue  of  the  summer,  seem  to  me  eminently  whole- 
some. But  I  want  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  at  present  these  movements,  for  the  greater 


264  EDUCATION  AND  LliTE 

part,  reach  only  the  poor  and  the  moderately  well- 
to-do.  The  Saturday  classes  and  the  vacation 
schools  are  mainly  in  the  slum  districts  and  pro- 
vide only  for  the  poorer  children,  while  the  Satur- 
day outings  in  charge  of  college  men  and  the  sum- 
mer camps  in  charge  of  specialists  are  from  their 
very  nature  available  only  for  families  of  some 
means.  The  great  middle  class,  the  bulk  of  our 
population,  is  as  yet  quite  unprovided  for. 

One  sees  then,  at  the  present  time,  a  shrinking 
school  year,  and  an  increasing  outside  movement 
to  fill  up  the  gap.  Is  this  logical  ?  I  propose  to 
inquire. 

It  must  seem  even  to  the  friends  of  the  estab- 
lished order  that  in  the  official  school  year  the 
holiday  plays  an  excessive  part.  From  whatever 
point  of  view  you  look  at  it,  a  school  process,  which 
covers  directly  only  one  eighth  of  the  time,  which 
limits  itself  to  seven  or  eight  months  out  of  the 
twelve,  which  spills  over  into  the  home  life  not  in 
a  cooperative  way  but  as  an  interruption,  which 
entirely  abdicates  during  four  or  five  months  of 
the  year,  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  a  social  process 
of  any  high  degree  of  efficiency.  Yet  this  prac- 
tice is  so  general  in  America  that  one  is  forced  to 
believe  that  it  rests  either  upon  some  underlying 
necessity  or  upon  some  principle  which  commends 
itself  to  the  judgment  of  seriously  minded  peo})le. 
It  is  our  present  business  to  find  this  out.  As  far 
as  I  can  discover,  the  Saturday  holiday  is  prompted 
by  the  feeling  that  school  children  deserve  some 


HOLIDAYS  256 

pleasure,  and  that  all  work  and  no  play  makes 
Jack  a  dull  boy  ;  the  Thanksgiving  holiday,  Wash- 
ington's birthday,  Lincoln's  birthday,  and  the  rest 
are  given  for  the  same  reason,  and  from  a  laudable 
desire  to  keep  in  mind  those  American  sentiments 
not  too  prominently  exemplified  in  current  political 
life ;  the  Christmas  and  Easter  vacations  have  a 
touch  of  religious  sentiment,  though  the  latter  holi- 
day does  not  always  correspond  with  the  festival 
itself  and  is  becoming  increasingly  merely  a  spring 
vacation.  They  must  be  counted  with  the  long 
summer  vacation  as  a  necessary  let-up  in  the  grind 
of  the  school  year.  The  summer  vacation  has  the 
additional  argument  that  American  cities  are  ex- 
cessively hot  in  summer  and  that  the  children  sim- 
ply cannot  study  during  the  heated  term.  We  may 
further  add  that  the  long  vacation  gives  the  chil- 
dren, whose  parents  can  afford  it,  a  chance  to  get 
a  taste  of  country  life,  and  that  in  the  country  it 
gives  the  children  an  opportunity  to  help  in  the 
garden  and  harvest  field. 

I  believe  this  to  be  a  fair  statement  of  the  raison 
d'etre  of  our  present  excessive  school  holidays.  If 
not,  the  reader  must  make  such  correction  of  the 
statement  as  his  own  larger  experience  enables  him 
to  do. 

From  my  own  point  of  view,  the  point  of  view 
which  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  present  volume  to 
set  forth,  these  arguments  have  little  to  commend 
them.  Taken  in  their  entirety,  they  are  wholly 
inadequate.     Let  us  examine  them  one  by  one. 


266  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

It  is  perfectly  true,  not  only  that  school  children 
deserve  some  pleasure,  but  that  they  deserve  much 
pleasure,  the  most  that  we  can  bring  into  their 
lives.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  even  a  good  deal  of 
work  and  a  very  little  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy. 
But  pleasure  is  not  a  commodity,  a  sort  of  sweet 
bun  that  you  can  buy  at  the  baker's  for  a  penny. 
It  is  a  quality,  and  like  all  human  qualities  has  its 
degrees  of  moral  worth  and  worthlessness.  The 
factory  hand,  relieved  for  a  day  from  the  dull  grind 
of  uninteresting  work,  finds  it  a  pleasure  to  simply 
lounge  on  the  corner.  The  laborer,  hungry  and 
exhausted,  finds  pleasure  in  the  warmth  and  stimu- 
lus of  a  glass  of  grog.  The  schoolboy,  set  free 
from  tasks  which  he  does  not  care  for,  finds  plea- 
sure in  almost  any  form  of  laziness  or  aimless  ex- 
ercise. But  all  of  these  are  cheap  and  unideal  forms 
of  pleasure,  and  cannot  be  seriously  recommended 
in  the  name  of  education.  Pleasure  must  be  by 
contrast,  but  we  do  not  want  it  to  be  contrast  with 
undesirable  things.  We  want  it  to  be  pleasure 
when  contrasted  with  all  possible  ways  of  occupying 
the  moment.  The  highest  pleasures  for  children 
and  for  boys  and  girls  are  those  occupations  which, 
when  contrasted  with  all  possible  occupations,  will 
bring  the  greatest  amount  of  gratification.  It  is  a 
moral  world,  through  and  through,  and  that  is  best 
which  brings  the  best  result.  Otherwise  we  should 
have  no  means  of  recognizing  the  best.  The  aim 
and  proper  method  of  education  is  to  provide  the 
best  possible  occupations,  and  being  a  culture  pro- 


HOLIDAYS  267 

cess,  the  best  possible  occupations  for  the  present 
moment.  Consequently  it  makes  each  day  abso- 
lutely and  literally  a  holiday.  For  children  we  con- 
ceive the  best  occupations  to  be  largely  bodily,  — 
activity  touched  with  sentiment ;  for  youth,  to  be 
partly  bodily  and  increasingly  intellectual,  —  activ- 
ity touched  with  both  thought  and  sentiment.  At 
their  best,  the  holiday  and  the  school  day  are  iden- 
tical. How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  Both  serve  the 
same  purpose,  —  the  increase  of  human  wealth,  — 
and  both  mean  the  best  possible  spending  of  the 
day.  There  seems  to  me  no  theoretical  ground  for 
the  Saturday  holiday ;  and,  indeed,  were  we  truly 
religious,  and  did  we  import  into  each  day  its  true 
measure  of  reverence  and  love,  its  true  worship  of 
the  Spirit,  there  would  be  no  occasion  for  the  Sun* 
day  holiday,  since  the  ofl&ce  of  priest  and  teacher 
would  merge  into  one.  But  as  this  is  considerably 
further  on  than  we  have  yet  got,  we  may  hold  it  as 
a  goal  rather  than  as  a  present  plan  for  any  large 
majority  of  schools.  So  I  have  been  led  to  recom- 
mend no  Saturday  holiday  in  the  process  of  child- 
hood, and  in  the  process  of  youth  a  weekly  holiday 
only  when  the  weather  is  fair,  and  the  day  can  be 
used  to  better  advantage  than  in  the  school  itself. 

I  am  not  saying  that  our  present  school  day  is  a 
holiday  for  either  teacher  or  student.  In  the  very 
best  of  our  schools  it  is,  but  they  are  exceedingly 
rare  institutions.  In  the  majority  of  our  schools  it 
is  very  far  from  being  the  case.  The  school  day 
is  an  admitted  grind,  and  the  holiday  a  blessed 


258  EDUCATION   AND  LIFE 

relief.  If  this  is  the  necessary  character  of  school 
days,  why  of  course  the  more  holidays  the  better. 
Instead  of  two  holidays  a  week,  let  us  have  three 
or  five  or  even  seven.  This  would  in  all  serious- 
ness be  an  excellent  plan,  if  we  then  started  out 
to  utilize  the  holidays  and  to  make  them  serve  the 
social  purpose.  But  it  would  be  a  still  more  ex- 
cellent plan,  and  far  more  logical,  if  we  stopped  the 
shrinkage  at  once,  and  turned  each  school  day  into 
a  holiday,  a  day  so  wisely  spent  that  at  the  end 
of  it  one  would  be  so  much  stronger  and  so  much 
more  refreshed  than  at  the  beginning  that  one 
would  be  still  better  prepared  to  meet  the  morrow, 
and  no  let-up  would  be  necessary.  This  would  be 
infinitely  better  than  exhausting  our  material  and 
then  trying  somewhat  ineffectively  to  restore  it, 
and  to  bring  it  back  to  concert  pitch. 

We  may  well  retain  the  holidays  of  religion 
and  humanity,  —  Thanksgiving,  Christmas,  Wash- 
ington's and  Lincoln's  birthdays,  Easter,  and  May 
day,  —  but  we  could  somewhat  improve  our  man- 
ner of  keeping  them.  Especially  we  might  well 
omit  the  holiday  habit  of  over-eating.  In  primitive 
times,  when  the  food  supply  was  somewhat  precari- 
ous and  uncertain,  one  way  of  celebrating  the  advent 
of  plenty,  and  so  coming  even,  as  it  were,  with  the 
wolf,  was  to  make  a  feast  and  eat  and  drink  much 
more  than  was  good  for  you.  But  in  these  more 
abundant  times  upon  which  we  are  fallen,  when  we 
are  all  reasonably  sure  of  three  good  square  meals 
a  day,  there  really  seems  no  particular  excuse  for 


HOLIDAYS  289 

doubling  up  and  eating  two  meals  at  once.  We 
had  much  better  celebrate  these  days  by  making 
them  the  occasion  of  renewed  inspiration  and  re- 
newed courage.  The  Harvest-home,  the  Springtide, 
the  Resurrection,  the  birthdays  of  great  and  good 
men,  might  well  come  to  us  fraught  with  meaning 
and  delight,  and  we  should  be  losing  much  to  give 
up  these  special  times  and  seasons. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  question  of  the  summer 
vacation.  Granting  that  a  rational  school  process 
which  refreshes  and  vitalizes,  instead  of  exhausting 
and  depressing,  makes  a  holiday  under  ordinary 
conditions  both  unnecessary  and  undesirable,  there 
still  remains  the  question  of  summer  heat,  of  the 
country  outing,  and  of  child  labor.  Let  us  take 
them  up  one  by  one. 

The  summer  heat  in  American  cities  is  a  mat- 
ter of  too  vivid  experience  to  need  any  discussion. 
It  is  not  limited  to  July  and  August.  Any  time 
from  the  first  of  June  to  the  first  of  October  we 
are  liable  to  periods  of  such  excessive  heat  that 
the  ordinary  occupations  of  life,  and  especially  the 
ordinary  school  process,  can  only  be  carried  on  at 
great  discomfort  and  at  great  disadvantage.  Tlie 
condition  is  not  exceptional,  but  annual,  and  must 
be  met  and  provided  for.  Our  present  provision  is 
most  inadequate.  The  private  schools,  as  we  have 
seen,  simply  close ;  and  since  all  of  their  children 
are  commonly  sent  into  the  country,  it  is  perhaps 
the  most  sensible  thing  that  they  could  do.  The 
public  schools  brave  a  part  of  June  and  some  of  the 


260  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE    ' 

most  trying  heat  of  September,  with  results  which 
are  sometimes  directly  fatal  and  always  widely 
disastrous.  The  ordeals  of  June  are  particularly 
burdensome,  the  examinations,  graduations,  promo- 
tions, and  it  is  a  pale,  limp  lot  of  both  children  and 
teachers  who  finally  disband  towards  the  end  of 
the  month.  If  one  did  not  know  better,  one  would 
be  tempted  to  ask,  "  Have  they  been  very  ill  ? 
Are  they  just  out  of  the  hospital,  all  these  peo- 
ple ?  "  But  one  knows  only  too  well  that  they  are 
just  out  of  school.  And  then,  finally,  when  the 
schools  do  close,  what  happens  ?  The  heat  is  not 
disposed  of,  and  neither  are  the  children.  A  few 
of  them  get  ofE  to  the  country.  A  few  of  the  most 
weakly  of  them  get  a  short  respite  through  the 
fresh-air  fund  and  the  country-week  association; 
but  the  majority  of  them  remain  just  where  they 
were,  save  that  instead  of  being  occupied  in  fairly 
decent  schoolrooms,  they  are  in  the  hot,  dirty  street, 
or  in  the  small,  close  houses.  And  meanwhile  the 
social  purpose  is  at  a  standstill,  is,  perhaps,  having 
negative  work  done  for  it;  its  formal  agent  has 
abdicated. 

This  plan  of  unconditional  surrender  is  neither 
brave  nor  wise  nor  economic.  In  reality,  it  is  not 
such  a  dreadful  enemy,  the  heat.  It  simply  intro- 
duces a  distinct  condition  into  the  day's  problem, 
and,  if  properly  met,  the  heat  may  be  made  a 
source  of  pleasure  and  good  instead  of  a  source  of 
pain  and  evil.  To  suggest  only  a  few  of  the 
simple  physical  benefits  which  come  with  warm 


HOLIDAYS  261 

weather,  we  have  a  more  plentiful  supply  of  fresh 
air  in  our  houses  than  at  any  other  season  of  the 
year ;  we  have  more  opportunity  to  be  in  the  open, 
and  particularly,  at  night ;  we  are  care  free  to  enjoy 
the  moonshine  and  the  starlight ;  we  may  wear 
much  less  clothing,  a  freedom  which  children  espe- 
cially appreciate ;  we  may  have  frequent  swimming 
and  bathing,  one  element  of  a  boy's  heaven. 

Instead,  then,  of  giving  up,  simply  surrendering, 
suppose  we  inquire  what  the  educational  process 
might  do  with  the  summer  by  way  of  carrying  out 
the  social  purpose.  Acting  in  conjunction  with 
the  heat,  instead  of  in  defiance  of  it,  much  splendid 
work  can  be  done.  In  fact,  in  the  matter  of  human 
possibilities,  the  summer  is  the  very  richest  season 
of  the  whole  year.  The  days  are  the  longest,  the 
nights  are  the  balmiest,  vegetation  is  at  its  height. 
Nature  is  in  her  most  exuberant  mood.  It  is  a 
rare  season,  and  I  can  but  pity  the  man  or  woman 
or  child  who  does  not  hail  its  return  with  a  full 
and  welcoming  heart.  It  may  be  a  breath  of  Pan, 
but  it  seems  to  me  almost  an  irreligious  thing  not 
to  rejoice  in  all  this  fertility  and  bounty  and  love- 
liness. Education  loses  a  tremendous  opportunity 
if  she  does  not  go  hand  in  hand  with  Nature 
through  all  the  long,  glad  days  of  summer.  Now 
two  practical  plans  at  once  suggest  themselves  by 
which  the  educational  process  can  be  carried  with 
advantage  through  the  warm  weather.  The  most 
ideal  plan,  and  the  only  one  which  will  finally  sat- 
isfy the  social  conscience,  is  the  plan  of  sending  all 


262  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  children  of  the  city  out  into  the  country.  The 
second  plan,  which  has  the  advantage  of  being 
immediately  applicable,  but  which  must  be  looked 
upon  as  merely  transitional,  is  the  plan  of  keeping 
the  schools  open  all  the  year  and  adapting  both  the 
buildings  and  the  occupations  to  the  exigencies  of 
warm  weather.  Both  plans  open  such  large  vistas 
that  they  may  not  be  discussed  at  full  length,  but 
we  may  at  least  touch  upon  them. 

The  first  plan  is  not  so  wild  as  it  may  at  first 
sound,  and  is  not  at  all  Utopian,  but  a  practical, 
socially  economic  suggestion.  We  undertake  much 
more  tremendous  enterprises  in  the  name  of  indi- 
vidual and  corporate  greed,  and  carry  them  to  a 
successful  conclusion.  This  enterprise  is  far  more 
important.  A  city  which  can  boast  a  clean,  healthy, 
moral,  beauty-loving  population  would  need  no 
other  objects  of  civic  pride,  for  all  else  would  be 
added  unto  it.  But  this  work  of  personal  redemp- 
tion must  begin  with  the  children,  and  a  causation- 
ist  may  well  take  the  ground  that  any  movement, 
however  costly  and  difficult,  is  still  socially  eco- 
nomic if  it  produce  a  better  breed  of  men.  To 
take  the  children  of  a  city  to  the  country  for  four 
months  means  the  desertion  of  their  homes  for 
that  period,  the  provision  of  temporary  country 
homes,  the  employment  of  an  army  of  people  to 
instruct  and  care  for  them,  and  finally  the  com- 
plete separation  from  the  parents  and  the  conse- 
quent breaking  of  home  ties.  It  means  also  a 
rather  dismal  summer  for  the  mother  and  father 


HOLIDAYS  26S 

left  behind  in  the  city.  These  difficulties  are  over- 
whelming, and  there  would  still  remain  the  ques- 
tion, if  this  pure  air,  better  water,  greater  freedom, 
simpler  life,  closer  touch  with  Nature,  are  good 
during  four  months,  why  not  five,  six,  twelve 
months?  And  this  practically  is  the  solution.  It 
is  not  the  temporary  exodus  of  the  children  for 
four  months,  with  its  undesirable  separations  and 
uneconomic  duplicating  of  the  apparatus  of  life, 
but  the  permanent  exodus  of  the  family  group  into 
surroundings  more  conducive  to  the  ideal  life.  It 
is  the  re-populating  of  the  country,  and  the  shrink- 
age of  the  city,  that  is,  as  a  place  of  residence. 

Cities  have  not  builded  themselves.  They  are 
the  outward  expression  of  perfectly  distinct  social 
forces.  Withdraw  these  forces,  turn  them  into 
other  channels,  and  the  cities  are  as  doomed  as  if 
an  earthquake  had  jostled  them.  The  primary 
motive  may  well  have  been  protection.  The  walled 
city  is  the  earliest  type,  and  for  a  long  time  the 
only  type.  But  this  necessity  has  long  since  passed. 
Many  of  the  towns  and  cities  of  Europe  retain 
their  ancient  walls  on  account  of  their  picturesque- 
ness  and  historical  interest,  and  possibly  because 
of  their  attractiveness  to  the  tourist  world,  to  the 
crowds  of  American,  English,  and  German  money- 
makers who  now  bring  gold  and  moral  desolation 
to  many  of  the  fairest  spots  of  Europe.  But  many 
of  the  towns  and  cities  have  leveled  their  own 
walls,  and  turned  the  sites  of  them  into  peaceful, 
tree-lined  promenades.     This  first  motive,  that  of 


264  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

protection,  may  be  quite  dismissed.  The  second 
motive,  I  should  say,  was  and  is  the  natural  gre- 
gariousness  of  the  human  race,  a  very  real  motive, 
and  one  from  which  much  good  may  be  made  to 
flow.  We  like  to  be  together.  We  like  the  touch 
of  human  fellowship.  We  are  social  by  instinct ; 
and  when  modern  society  wishes  to  impose  its  cru- 
elest  torture,  it  dooms  a  man  to  solitary  confine- 
ment. The  city  is  an  expression  of  this  gregarious- 
ness.  The  country  was  formerly  a  denial  of  it.  A 
scattered  population,  very  poor  roads,  exceedingly 
inadequate  means  of  locomotion,  made  the  isola- 
tion of  the  country  a  real  hardship  and  added 
much  to  the  attracting  force  of  the  city.  The 
most  successful  country  life  in  America  was  in  the 
South.  The  large  plantation  was  a  community  in 
itself.  The  mansion  was  large  and  well  peopled, 
—  the  master  and  his  immediate  family,  the  cousins 
and  other  relatives,  the  crowds  of  arriving  and 
departing  guests,  the  numerous  house  servants. 
The  slave  quarters  were  even  more  populous.  In 
a  world  so  gay  and  so  toiling  there  was  little 
chance  for  loneliness.  Had  it  all  rested  upon 
something  better  than  human  slavery  on  the  one 
side,  and  bodily  laziness  on  the  other,  it  would 
have  been  difficult  to  have  supplanted  these  patri- 
archal groups  by  the  present  hideous  industrial 
towns  of  the  South. 

But  new  forces  are  at  work,  forces  which  may 
make  the  country  more  sociable  in  its  possibilities 
than  the  city  itself.    In  the  first  place,  the  holdings 


HOLIDAYS  265 

are  necessarily  smaller.  The  abolition  of  slavery 
and  the  growing  scarcity  of  even  paid  labor  — 
a  scarcity  which  I  for  one  rejoice  to  see,  since  it 
means  an  increase  of  democracy  —  have  made  it 
increasingly  impossible  for  one  man  to  successfully 
operate  a  farm  of  several  hundred  or  several  thou- 
sand acres.  A  small,  well-cultivated  garden  plot 
of  ten  or  twenty  acres  is  more  profitable.  Further- 
more, the  change  in  the  national  diet,  the  dimin- 
ished use  of  meat  and  the  increased  consumption 
of  vegetables,  grains,  and  fruits,  must  be  taken 
into  consideration.  Many  families  which  formerly 
had  meat  two  or  even  three  times  a  day  now  have 
it  once,  and  a  few  are  dispensing  with  its  use  alto- 
gether. This  reduces  the  long  stretches  of  pasture 
land,  and  brings  about  a  more  intensive  and  more 
highly  civilized  culture  of  the  soil ;  moving  the 
farmhouses  much  nearer  together,  and  giving  a 
Mghly  evolved  agricultural  community  the  aspect 
of  a  well-laid-out  and  charming  village.  I  have 
been  on  these  small  garden-farms  in  California 
where  the  year's  profit  from  a  single  acre  was  one 
thousand  dollars.  I  have  not  the  exact  figures  at 
hand,  but  taking  the  average  production  per  acre 
and  the  market  price  of  staple  commodities,  and 
then  reducing  the  total  by  the  necessary  cost  of 
cultivation  and  transportation,  and  one  reaches 
very  meagre  net  returns,  in  many  cases  not  over 
five  or  ten  dollars  per  acre,  in  many  cases  consider- 
ably under  the  smaller  of  these  figures.  Ours,  for 
example,  is  notably  a  wheat  growing  country.     I 


EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

have  seen  wheat  fields  in  Idaho  which  produced 
one  hundred  and  five  bushels  to  the  acre  !  But 
the  average  yield  from  these  great  factory  farms 
of  the  West  is  not  in  the  most  favorable  years  over 
sixteen  bushels  per  acre.  Taking  the  present  price 
of  wheat,  one  can  see  that  the  only  way  to  make 
such  meagre  returns  commercially  possible  is  the 
socially  impossible  present  method  of  working  im- 
mense farms  with  cheap,  ignorant  labor,  but  little 
better  than  the  slave  labor  of  the  ante-bellum  days. 
Social  evolution  means,  then,  the  diminished  acre- 
age of  farms  and  the  increased  neighborliness  of 
farmers. 

To  this  must  be  added  two  vastly  important  fac- 
tors, good  roads  and  our  marvelously  improved 
methods  of  locomotion.  The  good  roads  come  with 
the  more  intensive  culture  of  the  land.  We  can- 
not afford  to  build  good  roads  through  large,  slov- 
enly farms.  There  is  not  enough  money  to  do  it. 
We  must  put  up  with  mud  lanes  just  as  we  must 
jput  up  with  cheap  and  nasty  barbed  wire  fences. 
Good  roads  are  expensive.  They  are  only  possible 
where  there  are  many  people  to  use  them,  people 
with  decent  living  incomes  in  their  pockets.  But 
with  country  houses  moderately  near  together,  and 
good  roads  in  between  them,  an  automobile,  a  bi- 
cycle, a  modern  easy-running  wagon,  even  a  pair 
of  sturdy  legs,  satisfies  the  conditions  of  the  most 
exacting  gregariousness  and  makes  country  life 
eminently  social.  The  same  facilities  make  it  just 
as  possible  to  have  lectures,  concerts,  and  plays,  — 


HOLIDAYS  267 

that  is,  if  the  people  want  them,  —  even  libraries, 
gymnasiums,  and  the  best  of  schools.  None  of  the 
reputed  advantages  of  the  city  need  be  omitted. 

Thete  are  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  in  a 
square  mile.  If  you  take  sixteen  square  miles, 
divide  them  into  homesteads  of  twenty  acres,  and 
allow  six  people  to  each  family  group,  you  will 
have  a  total  of  three  thousand  and  seventy-two 
persons,  a  community  large  enough,  if  so  minded, 
to  attain  every  social  advantage.  Now  take  a 
piece  of  paper  and  draw  on  it  a  large  square,  divid- 
ing it  into  sixteen  smaller  squares,  four  on  a  side. 
Draw  the  two  diagonals  crossing  in  the  centre  and 
mark  the  centre  C.  With  C  as  a  centre,  and  radii 
equal  respectively  to  one  side  and  to  two  sides  of  a 
small  square,  incribe  the  smaller  and  the  larger  cir- 
cles. Let  the  diagram  represent  a  map  of  such  a 
community  as  we  are  considering,  and  let  the  diago- 
nals and  cross-lines,  with  such  branches  as  may  be 
necessary,  stand  for  good  roads.  It  will  be  seen 
at  a  glance  that  the  most  remote  households  from 
the  centre  of  community  life  will  be  those  at  the 
ends  of  the  diagonals,  but  they  will  be  only  y/S 
miles  away,  or  2.83  miles,  and  the  roads  being 
good,  such  a  distance  could  be  readily  covered 
by  a  bicycle  or  automobile  in  fifteen  or  twenty 
minutes.  About  sixty  per  cent,  will  live  between 
the  two  circles,  and  will  consequently  be  between 
one  and  two  miles  from  the  centre  of  things ;  while 
almost  twenty  per  cent,  will  live  within  the  smaller 
circle  and  will  be  within  a  mile  of  C.     Suppose 


268  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

that  at  C  we  reserve  two  hundred  and  forty  acres 
for  public  uses,  —  park,  experiment  station,  race- 
course, fields  for  outdoor  sports,  and  sites  for  pub- 
lic buildings.  This  dispossesses  twelve  families, 
leaving  a  community  of  just  three  thousand  souls, 
—  allowing  one  soul  for  each  body,  which  is  the 
proportion  we  hope  ultimately  to  attain. 

Such  a  township  of  three  thousand  souls  could 
amply  support  a  first-class  supply  store ;  a  post 
office,  express,  telephone  and  telegraph  station ;  a 
repair  shop ;  a  hotel ;  a  large  and  beautiful  public 
building,  with  a  theatre  for  lectures,  concerts,  and 
plays,  a  university  such  as  will  be  described  in  the 
next  chapter,  a  gymnasium,  a  swimming  tank,  a 
public  library  and  reading-room,  a  science  bureau 
in  connection  with  the  experiment  station  ;  and 
finally,  the  offices  for  the  local  government.  In 
addition,  this  public  campus  might  be  made  the 
site  for  one  or  more  churches,  for  a  public  cream- 
ery, and  for  such  industries  and  manufactures  as 
the  locality  made  desirable. 

These  advantages,  great  as  they  are,  are  not 
illusory.  They  are  quite  within  reach  of  any  three 
thousand  souls  who  want  them,  and  they  are  much 
in  excess  of  the  advantages  offered  by  any  present 
city  in  America.  Many  of  the  reputed  advantages 
of  the  city  are  indeed  out-and-out  illusion.  Lec- 
tures for  the  most  part  are  given  to  persons  who 
do  not  particularly  need  them,  to  the  classes  rather 
than  to  the  masses ;  concerts  are  expensive  and  are 
several  miles  off;  while  the  theatres,  when  good. 


HOLIDAYS  269 

are  likewise  expensive,  and  when  cheap  and  poop 
are  hardly  to  be  reckoned  as  part  of  the  culture 
process. 

This  arrangement  of  a  township  four  miles 
square  is  only  one  out  of  many  possible  arrange- 
ments, and  has  been  chosen  because  it  is  the  sim- 
plest It  may  be  worth  remarking  that  in  sixteen 
square  miles  of  territory  there  would,  in  the  East 
at  least,  be  very  likely  to  be  one  or  more  first-rate 
water  powers  which  might  be  utilized  by  the  com- 
munity for  electrical  purposes,  both  traction  and 
lighting.  In  such  a  case,  in  place  of  arranging  our 
sixteen  squares  in  a  perfect  square,  it  might  be  bet- 
ter to  arrange  them  in  a  rectangle,  eight  squares 
long  by  two  broad.  The  centre,  C,  would  then  be 
one  mile  from  each  side  and  four  miles  from  each 
end.  An  electric  tram  line,  eight  miles  long,  pass- 
ing from  end  to  end  through  the  centre,  would  still 
further  reduce  the  practical  distance  of  each  house- 
hold from  the  centre.  Half  the  entire  population 
would  be  less  than  half  a  mile  from  the  public 
tram,  and  the  other  half  would  be  less  than  a  mile. 
Such  a  tram  could  safely  be  run  fifteen  miles  an 
hour,  or  a  mile  in  four  minutes.  The  most  remote 
citizen  would  be  less  than  a  mile  from  a  tram 
which  would  in  sixteen  minutes  take  him  to  the 
social  centre. 

My  sole  purpose  in  going  into  these  details  is 
to  point  out  that  country  life  may  be  made  just  as 
social  as  city  life.  I  have  assumed  in  the  illustra- 
tion chosen  that  the  township  is  self-supporting ; 


270  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

that  is,  that  each  family  makes  its  living  off  of  the 
twenty-acre  garden-farm,  with  possibly  some  slight 
share  in  the  industrial  life  at  the  centre.  If  the 
industrial  activities  were  still  greater,  it  would  be 
possible  to  reduce  the  holdings  to  ten  or  even  five 
acres,  doubling  or  quadrupling  the  population  while 
still  preserving  the  wholesome  freedom  of  the  coun- 
try. Finally,  if  the  township  were  connected  by 
rapid  transit  with  the  city,  and  the  city  were  still 
retained  as  the  bread-and-butter  centre,  the  hold- 
ings might  be  reduced  to  one  acre,  and  the  town- 
ship still  preserve  the  aspect  of  a  very  roomy  and 
beautiful  village.  An  acre  is  about  207  feet 
square.  If  half  of  this  were  used  for  lawn,  orchard, 
and  building  site,  and  the  other  half  cultivated  in- 
tensively as  a  garden,  it  would  be  possible  to  almost 
feed  a  family  of  six,  and  much  reduce  the  demand 
for  outside  resources. 

Protection  and  gregariousness  built  the  cities  of 
the  olden  time.  In  the  century  just  ended  there 
came  a  still  more  powerful  force,  a  force  which 
has  led  to  their  multiplication  and  astonishing  ex- 
tension. It  was  the  force  of  commercialism.  The 
city  is  preeminently  the  institution  of  the  market. 
Here  is  the  place  to  buy  time  and  labor  and  en- 
ergy and  health  and  strength  and  honor,  —  all  the 
things  a  man  can  sell,  whether  he  ought  or  ought 
not.  Here  is  the  place  to  exploit  mankind  and 
traffic  in  all  possible  wares.  The  age  being  com- 
mercial, the  city  is  the  natural  expression  of  the 
age.     It  is  essentially  a  market,  with  living  accom- 


HOLIDAYS  271 

modatlon^  for  the  bulk  of  the  traders,  very  mag- 
nificent accommodations  for  the  successful  ones, 
very  mean  and  shabby  accommodations  for  the  less 
successful  ones. 

To  turn  one's  back  upon  the  city  no  longer  means 
loss  of  protection,  and  I  have  been  trying  to  show 
that  it  need  not  mean  any  sacrifice  of  the  social 
instinct;  but  it  does  assuredly  mean  the  giving 
up  of  commercial  speculation,  and  the  gambling 
spirit  generally.  You  have  to  get  people  together 
in  considerable  numbers,  and  put  a  pressure  on 
them,  the  pressure  of  necessity  or  desire,  to  get 
any  great  profit  out  of  them.  The  city  satisfies 
both  of  these  conditions.  It  furnishes  the  crowd 
and  it  furnishes  the  pressure.  There  is  the  daily 
necessity  for  food  and  clothing  and  shelter,  and 
there  is  the  desire  for  pleasure  and  display.  Pro- 
fit could  ask  no  better  harvest  field.  As  long  as 
profit,  that  is  "  business,"  is  the  main  concern  of 
the  adult  world,  the  city  will  hold  its  own  and  will 
grow  larger  and  possibly  even  more  hideous  than 
at  present.  From  our  present  point  of  view  this 
business  spirit  is  distinctly  anti-social,  since  it  goes 
in  for  money  profit  at  any  cost,  and  is  not  concerned 
with  the  real  social  purpose,  the  increase  of  human 
wealth.  Just  so  far,  then,  as  a  city  represents  the 
apotheosis  of  this  spirit,  the  worship  of  the  golden 
calf,  —  and  there  are  few  cities  which  do  not, — 
it  must  be  looked  upon  as  a  hostile  force,  an  anti- 
social thing,  essentially  opposed  to  the  deepest  pur- 
poses of  those  who  care  for  excellence  and  beauty. 


272  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

This  apparent  digression  in  a  chapter  which  has 
ostensibly  to  do  with  school  holidays  has  been  made 
unavoidable  in  coming  at  a  practical  treatment  of 
the  problem  of  getting  the  children  into  the  coun- 
try. Every  one,  I  think,  must  admit  that  it  is 
highly  desirable  to  get  them  into  the  country  for  at 
least  four  months  in  the  year,  that  it  is  uneconomic 
to  provide  duplicate  homes  and  service  for  such 
numbers,  and  finally  that  it  is  most  undesirable  to 
separate  them  from  their  parents.  As  I  have 
already  suggested,  every  argument  makes  the  coun- 
try the  better  place  the  whole  year  round,  and  this 
becomes  the  only  practical  arrangement  when  it  is 
realized  that  the  exodus  of  the  children  must  and 
ought  to  mean  the  exodus  of  the  entire  family.  The 
carrying  out  of  the  social  purpose  involves  the 
abandonment  of  the  city  as  we  now  know  it,  and 
an  extension  of  the  idea  of  home  to  include  both  a 
house  and  a  garden.  Tremendous  as  such  a  pro- 
gramme is,  education  cannot  avoid  it.  But  when 
the  idea  once  takes  hold  of  a  man,  that  the  matters 
of  supreme  importance  are  health  and  beauty  and 
accomplishment  and  goodness,  the  programme  is  as 
good  as  carried  out,  for  the  matter  has  become 
inevitable.  Such  a  man  will  set  about  getting  the 
best  possible  environment  for  his  family  and  him- 
self, for  it  wUl  become  a  religious  duty  to  do  it, 
much  more  binding  than  putting  a  dollar-bill  on 
the  collection  plate  or  subscribing  to  formal  arti- 
cles of  belief  which  he  neither  knows  nor  under- 
stands.    An  enterprise,  undertaken  in  this  spirit, 


HOLIDAYS  273 

as  a  matter  of  prime  importance,  seldom  fails  of 
success. 

But  meanwhile  the  children  are  in  the  city,  the 
idea  of  human  wealth  has  not  penetrated  into  the 
consciousness  of  their  parents,  the  summer  heat  is 
on,  and  there  remains  the  temporary  expedient  of 
which  we  spoke,  the  adaptation  of  school  buildings 
and  school  process  to  the  conditions  of  the  season. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  build  school  buildings  with 
flat  tin  roofs,  thin  walls,  and  sliding  windows  which 
open  but  half  way.  It  is  entirely  possible  to  build 
the  walls  thick,  to  make  the  windows  open  all  the 
way,  to  .have  the  roof  project  several  feet,  to  give 
it  such  a  slope  that  there  will  be  an  adequate  air 
chamber  over  the  upper  rooms,  to  surround  the 
building  with  an  open  playground,  and  provide 
trees  and  vines  and  other  cool  greenery.  Such  a 
building  will  be  far  more  comfortable  and  whole- 
some than  the  average  dwelling,  and  not  less  suited 
to  the  requirements  of  winter.  In  the  same  way 
it  is  the  merest  common  sense  to  adapt  the  chil- 
dren's dress  to  the  heat.  A  clean,  healthy  boy, 
with  only  a  neat  woven  suit  and  with  sandals  for 
street  wear;  a  wholesome  girl,  with  these  and  a 
simple  cotton  frock  cut  with  low  neck  and  short 
sleeves,  need  not  suffer  with  the  heat,  and  it  would 
be  a  very  conventional  person  indeed  who  found 
such  simple  dress  unsuitable.  The  school  process  al- 
ready outlined  for  childhood  and  youth  in  the  small 
organic  schools  wiU  need  very  little  modification  to 
adapt  it  to  summer.    In  the  warmest  weather,  there 


274  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

will  naturally  be  a  selection  of  the  quieter  games 
and  exercises,  greater  use  of  the  swimming  tank 
during  school  hours  and  as  a  part  of  the  regular 
occupations,  more  frequent  excursions  to  the  park 
and  to  the  country.  In  the  high  school,  some  of 
the  intellectual  work  may  give  place  to  manual 
work.  It  would,  in  fact,  take  little  skill  to  arrange 
a  school  programme  that  would  be  infinitely  better 
than  the  present  unofficial  programme  of  a  summer 
in  the  city,  with  its  aimless,  profitless  waste  of  time. 
The  children  do  not  even  have  a  good  time,  for 
laziness,  let  me  repeat,  is  not  a  source  of  happiness. 
It  becomes  a  habit  and  may  then  lead  one  to  decline 
more  active  sources  of  happiness,  but  it  does  not 
provide  a  substitute.  The  long  summer  vacation 
for  city  children  lacking  adequate  opportunities  for 
games  and  wholesome  occupations  tends  to  promote 
laziness  and  other  vicious  habits,  and  has,  I  think, 
nothing  to  be  said  in  its  favor.  Socially,  it  is  a 
grave  mistake,  since  it  both  wastes  an  opportunity 
and  undoes  some  of  the  good  work  already  done. 

I  come  now  to  those  more  fortunate  children 
who  are  taken  out  of  town  for  four  or  five  months, 
and  in  the  country,  among  the  mountains,  at  the 
seashore,  have  an  opportunity  to  taste  the  freedom 
and  delight  of  Nature.  For  them  the  long  sum- 
mer vacation  is  an  immense  benefit,  provided,  of 
course,  the  other  conditions  are  wholesome,  and 
especially  the  human  comradeship.  It  is  quite 
possible  to  reap  an  even  richer  harvest  than  from 
the  regular  school  year  itself.     The  simpler  and 


HOLIDAYS  275 

more  sturdy  life,  the  fresh  air  and  exercise,  the 
chance  to  walk  and  run,  ride  and  row,  swim  and 
climb,  the  contact  with  Nature,  with  plant  and  ani- 
mal, mineral  and  rock,  sunshine  and  storm,  —  these 
are  the  great  teachers  of  childhood,  and  when  their 
lessons  are  learned  in  reverence  and  love,  one  is 
the  richer  for  the  rest  of  one's  life.  But  it  is  to 
be  remembered  that  into  this  full  and  marvelous 
world  children  do  not  come  quite  unaided,  any 
more  than  the  race  came  at  a  single  generation. 
It  is  a  world  that  must  be  opened  to  them,  and 
necessarily  by  one  who  has  himself  entered  it,  and 
knows  the  main  traveled  roads  and  some  of  the 
by-paths.  It  is  very  good  for  children  to  find  out 
as  much  as  they  can  for  themselves,  but  they  must 
be  put  in  the  way  of  this  knowledge,  and  must  be 
stimulated  and  helped.  And  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  there  come  rainy  days,  and  even  long 
stretches  on  sunny  days,  when  other  occupations 
are  to  be  provided,  hand-work,  reading,  sketching, 
games  with  something  better  in  them  than  a  mere 
playing  with  chance.  The  wealth  of  the  summer 
is  potential.  It  must  be  made  actual  by  sym- 
pathetic and  intelligent  comradeship.  Without 
this,  the  long  summer  vacation  may  bring  to  the 
child  in  the  country,  as  to  the  child  in  the  city, 
actual  deterioration.  The  ordinary  summer  hotel 
and  boarding-house  are  the  very  last  places  for 
children,  and  even  at  one's  own  country  place, 
stablemen  and  ignorant  servants  are  the  last  com- 
panions for  them. 


276  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

Some  very  noble  people  board,  but  the  majority 
of  those  who  board  are  not  noble,  and  are  not  suit- 
able companions  for  a  child.  They  have  perma- 
nently or  temporarily  thrown  over  social  responsi- 
bilities, and  are  out  of  touch  with  that  more  serious 
and  more  beautiful  life  which  comes  to  flower  only 
in  a  home.  No  one  who  has  watched  the  treat- 
ment of  children  in  hotels,  the  way  they  are  trifled 
with,  the  alternate  coaxing  and  bullying  that  they 
receive,  the  frivolous  and  self-conscious  attitude  to- 
wards life  that  is  cultivated,  can  regard  such  an 
environment  as  commendable,  or  even  permissible. 
The  simplest  cottage,  a  cabin  even,  or  a  tent,  is 
much  to  be  preferred,  and  may  be  made  the  instru- 
ment of  greater  good  and  happiness. 

A  long  chapter  might  be  written  about  servants, 
but  it  would  be  sad  reading.  Taking  the  class  as 
a  whole,  I  believe  it  to  be  socially  the  least  desir- 
able, the  most  unsound  class  that  we  have.  And 
I  believe  this  because  it  is  of  all  our  laboring 
classes  the  most  deficient  in  democracy  and  self- 
respect.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the  men. 
Many  women  believe  themselves  forced  into  do- 
mestic service  because  they  have  not  been  trained 
for  something  better,  and,  above  all,  they  fall  into 
it  because  they  have  not  had  the  will  and  character 
to  work  out  a  sounder  and  less  slavish  scheme  of 
life.  But  a  man  has  greater  opportunities,  and, 
having  these,  is  the  more  accountable.  To  be 
acceptable  as  a  servant,  he  must  have  a  certain 
amount  of  intelligence  and  address,  a  certain  ap< 


HOLIDAYS  277 

pearance  and  physique.  To  be  permanently  suc- 
cessful, he  must  add  to  this,  honesty  and  reasonable 
faithfulness.  These  qualities  fit  a  man  for  some- 
thing better  than  being  ordered  around  by  other 
people,  his  superiors,  perhaps,  only  in  the  matter 
of  bank  accounts.  These  qualities  fit  a  man  for 
something  better  than  servility.  Here  in  America 
they  open  the  door  to  any  number  of  self-respect- 
ing, independent  occupations.  When,  in  the  face 
of  these  opportunities,  a  man  elects  to  be  a  servant, 
and  adds  to  it  a  willingness,  even  an  eagerness,  to 
exhaust  ingenuity  itself  in  quest  of  fees,  it  stamps 
him  at  once  as  a  person  of  very  unsound  outlook 
on  life,  and  a  most  unfit  companion  for  boys  and 
girls. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that,  however  deplorable 
our  modern  plutocracy,  the  moral  burden  of  it 
rests  upon  both  the  rich  and  the  poor ;  the  rich  in 
enslaving  their  neighbors,  the  poor  in  being  willing 
to  be  enslaved.  The  young,  man  whose  only  ambi- 
tion is  to  be  employed  by  some  one  else,  provided 
with  job  and  wages,  invites  the  exploitation  of  his 
labor  and  the  piling  up  of  those  tremendous  for- 
tunes which  he  afterwards  condemns  in  terms  of 
bitter  invective.  The  way  out,  here  as  elsewhere, 
is  through  the  open  door  of  a  more  democratic  and 
self-respecting  idea. 

Whether,  then,  the  long  summer  vacation  is  an 
advantage  even  to  the  children  who  are  spending  it 
in  the  country  depends  upon  how  they  are  spend- 
ing it,  and,  above  all,  with  whom. 


278  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

For  out-and-out  country  children,  particularly 
in  the  farming  districts,  the  project  of  an  all-year 
school  meets  with  the  opposition  that  the  children 
are  wanted  in  the  harvest  field  and  garden,  wanted 
to  drop  corn,  pick  stones,  pull  weeds,  make  hay, 
fetch  the  cows,  gather  berries,  wanted  for  a  hun- 
dred and  one  smaller  occupations,  wanted  some- 
times before  they  are  quite  old  enough  and  strong 
enough  for  the  tasks.  The  test  of  these  demands 
is  extremely  simple.  They  are  socially  sound  just 
BO  far  as  they  offer  the  best  possible  occupations 
for  children*  They  are  socially  unsound  just  so 
far  as  they  substitute  inferior  occupations.  All 
the  occupations  have  the  great  merit  of  being 
genuine.  The  work  is  there  and  has  to  be  done. 
The  doing  of  it  will  be  sincere  and  helpful,  and 
this  is  the  first  condition  of  artistic  work,  the 
doing  of  something  that  will  be  a  delight  and  ser- 
vice to  somebody.  It  is  much  better  than  mak- 
ing things  and  then  destroying  them.  Many  of  the 
occupations,  also,  are  so  little  muscular  that  they 
may  be  safely  undertaken  by  children  and  by  boys 
and  girls.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  outdoor  work 
may  properly  occupy  a  part  of  each  summer  day  ; 
but  to  further  the  social  purpose,  that  is,  to  be 
educational,  it  must  satisfy  precisely  the  same  con- 
ditions as  the  school  process.  It  must  make  for 
health,  strong  bodies,  and  good  red  blood,  and 
therefore  be  varied  and  never  exhausting.  It 
must  further  the  development  of  the  senses,  the 
sight  and  hearing  and  touch  and  taste  and  smell, 


HOLIDAYS  279 

and  consequently  be  quantitative,  and  sufficiently 
varied  to  bring  the  several  organs  into  constant 
use.  It  must  be  plainly  intelligent,  so  as  to  stimu- 
late the  intellectual  activity.  Finally,  and  above 
all,  it  must  be  touched  with  wholesome  emotion. 
The  children  must  be  interested  in  the  work,  must 
want  to  do  it,  must  do  it  right  gladly  and  merrily, 
in  the  company  of  gentle  persons  whom  they  love 
and  who  love  them.  If  these  conditions  are  ful- 
filled, then  child  labor  is  a  splendid  thing.  If  they 
are  not  fulfilled,  child  labor  is  anti-social  and 
wrong. 

By  insisting  so  strenuously  that  child  labor  in 
garden  and  field  shall  satisfy  precisely  the  same 
conditions  as  the  school  process,  the  two  are  prac- 
tically identified,  and  this  is  what  I  meant  that 
they  should  be.  The  school  has  simply  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  open,  and  holds  its  sessions  each  fair 
day  of  spring  and  summer  and  autumn  in  the 
most  beautiful  and  best  equipped  of  schoolhouses. 
Storm  and  cold  alone  drive  the  school  indoors, 
and  at  times  even  storm  and  cold  are  braved  in 
order  to  get  the  lesson  out  of  them,  and  the  tingle 
and  excitement  which  come  from  meeting  them. 
"  Delight,  joy,  sympathetic  interest  in  things,  is 
the  only  reality,"  says  the  ever  wise  Goethe.  "  It 
alone  calls  forth  what  is  real  in  ourselves.  Every- 
thing else  is  vain  and  produces  but  vanity." 

But  if  holidays  and  work  and  school  are  simply 
the  best  possible  spending  of  the  days,  —  the  most 
joyful,  the  most  helpful,  the  most  educational, — ' 


280  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

then  they  must  be  at  heart  one  and  the  same  thing. 
They  must  be  the  terms  of  a  common  purpose,  the 
modes  by  which  we  realize  the  social  good.  This 
result  might  have  seemed  at  first  an  absurdity,  a 
paradox  ;  but  now  I  hope  it  has  been  so  far  justi- 
fied that  one  may  count  it  not  only  as  a  truth,  but 
as  the  most  profound  and  far-reaching  truth  in 
education.  I  have  applied  it  in  the  educational 
process  of  childhood  and  youth.  I  mean  in  suc- 
ceeding chapters  to  carry  it  to  the  logical  extreme, 
and  apply  it  to  the  process  of  men  and  women  in 
action,  that  is,  to  the  concerns  of  adult  life. 

The  redemption  of  humanity  is  not  a  sudden 
act  of  conversion.  It  is  a  slow  and  constant  pro- 
cess, the  gradual  unfolding  and  perfecting  of  the 
human  spirit.  But  in  every  rational  scheme  of 
salvation  the  acceptable  time  is  now.  Why  put  off 
the  holiday  until  Christmas,  or  Easter,  or  summer- 
time, even  until  to-morrow  ?  Why  not  make  to-day 
a  holiday,  by  importing  into  it  a  sympathetic  inter- 
est in  people  and  things,  —  sound  emotion  and 
sound  activity  ? 


CHAPTER  rX 

AT  THE  UNIVERSITY 

If  the  lower  school  cover  the  educational  prcv 
cess  of  childhood,  and  the  high  school  cover  the 
process  of  youth,  then  the  university  must  cover  the 
process  of  manhood  and  womanhood.  It  must  be 
simply  a  process  for  carrying  out  the  social  pur- 
pose in  the  adult  world,  and  must  have  the  same 
purpose  as  the  schools,  the  increase  of  human 
wealth.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  I  propose  to  con- 
sider the  university,  and  to  inquire  what  form  it 
must  take  in  order  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of 
the  social  purpose,  and  be  the  fitting  culmination 
of  the  formal  educational  process. 

Although  the  university  is  among  the  very  old- 
est of  our  institutions  of  learning,  —  the  University 
of  Bologna  recently  celebrated  its  eight  hundredth 
anniversary,  —  its  precise  place  in  our  American 
system  of  education  is  not  yet  fixed.  It  is  not  yet 
articulated  with  the  high  school.  The  ideals  inside 
the  university  are  still  in  part  conflicting.  Per- 
haps its  very  age  is  responsible  for  this  uncer- 
tainty. So  many  traditions  have  gathered  around 
the  university,  it  is  so  venerable  and  authoritative, 
that  it  does  stand  more  or  less  for  the  ideals  of  the 


282  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

past,  and  the  rising  tide  of  democracy  has  not  yet 
flooded  its  purposes. 

At  heart,  the  university  is  aristocratic  in  that 
older  sense  which  made  excellence  an  exclusive 
quality  and  not  a  general  possession,  and  it  is  there- 
fore much  given  to  making  distinctions.  It  has 
always  been  the  process  of  the  privileged  few,  an 
institution  with  distinct  requirements  and  supposed 
rights.  It  is  still  such  in  the  minds  lof  many,  and 
this  belated  ideal,  for  such  I  must  regard  it,  stands 
confused  and  uncertain  in  the  face  of  the  newer, 
democratic  forces. 

These  forces,  however,  are  steadily  gaining 
ground.  In  England  they  have  been  showing 
themselves  in  that  democratic  impulse  which  has 
been  making  educational  history  under  the  name 
of  university  extension,  and  this  impulse  has  had 
the  distinction  of  originating  in  the  universities 
themselves.  In  Germany  the  university  is  so  far 
democratic  that  it  is  alike  open  to  all  classes,  pro- 
vided they  can  bring  a  somewhat  high  order  of 
intellectual  equipment.  In  Switzerland,  one  finds 
still  greater  freedom,  and  more  genuine  democracy, 
perhaps  the  widest  open  door  in  all  the  world  of 
universities. 

Here  in  America,  we  have  no  one  type  of  univer- 
sity. We  have  several  quite  distinct  types.  The 
older  universities,  with  their  eyes  more  steadily 
fixed  upon  the  traditions  of  the  past  than  upon 
the  requirements  of  the  present  moment,  are  still 
touched  with  medievalism.     The  newer  universi- 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  2«3 

fcies,  and  especially  those  of  the  West,  show  more 
distinctly  democratic  tendencies.  Some  of  them  are 
still  hampered  by  the  personal  whims  and  preju- 
dices of  their  founders,  but  time  will  probably 
remove  these  disabilities.  Between  these  two  ex- 
tremes, we  have  the  greatest  of  our  present  Amer- 
ican universities,  institutions  like  Harvard,  which 
have  the  tremendous  impetus  of  a  glorious  past 
and  a  firm  hold  upon  the  present. 

But  not  one  of  our  representative  universities 
has  yet  seized  upon  the  full  idea  of  democracy, 
that  the  university  is  the  process  of  manhood  and 
womanhood,  and,  as  such,  is  open  to  everybody, 
and  is  called  upon  to  serve  all  in  the  smaller  or 
greater  measure  of  their  needs,  rather  than  in  the 
prescribed  measure  of  its  own  elaborate  require- 
ments. The  thought  has  still  to  take  root  that  the 
sole  function  of  a  university  is  to  render  social 
service,  not  the  exclusive  service  which  it  is  pleased 
to  formulate,  but  that  general  human  service  which 
represents  the  carrying  out  of  the  social  purpose. 
One  may  sum  this  all  up  in  a  word  by  saying 
that  the  universities  need  to  be  democratized.  In 
England  this  need  was  recognized  by  the  univer- 
sities themselves.  In  this  country  the  need  was 
pressed  upon  the  universities  from  without.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  the  extension  movement  has 
taken  any  great  hold  in  America.  It  was  my  own 
undeserved  fortune  to  deliver  the  first  extension 
lecture  given  in  this  country.  It  was  on  chemistry, 
and   was  given   to   St.  Timothy's  Workingmen's 


284  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

Guild  in  Roxborough,  Philadelphia,  in  November, 
1890.  The  movement,  therefore,  is  still  quite 
young.  I  have  watched  it  very  carefully,  and  I 
have  had  high  hopes  of  its  usefulness,  but  each 
year  has  made  it  clearer  that  in  America,  at  least, 
it  is  not  a  democratic  movement.  It  has  rendered 
genuine  service,  but  among  a  class  for  whose  im- 
provement other  agencies  already  exist,  that  is  to 
say,  it  has  reached  teachers,  people  of  leisure,  in- 
tellectual people,  even  people  of  fashion,  rather 
than  workingmen.  It  has  become,  in  fact,  a  form 
of  intellectual  amusement,  to  be  ranked  with  the 
German  opera,  and  the  symphony  concert,  and 
other  agreeable  pastimes,  rather  than  as  a  form  of 
serious  intellectual  work.  I  do  not  want  to  speak 
slightingly  of  any  of  these  occupations,  and  I  be- 
lieve there  are  people  who  make  very  serious  work 
of  them.  I  only  want  to  point  out  that  they  are 
not  activities  at  all  parallel  to  genuine  university 
work.  The  extension  movement  has  had  the  great 
merit  of  attracting  to  our  shores  a  series  of  bril- 
liant English  lecturers,  and  of  bringing  out  a 
number  of  talented  lecturers  from  our  own  uni- 
versities. Some  of  our  men  have  likewise  gone 
to  England,  and  this  interchange  of  wisdom  has 
done  more  to  effect  a  genuine  Anglo-American 
alliance  than  the  more  official  movements  at  Wash- 
ington. 

The  really  effective  impulse  towards  the  exten- 
sion of  adult  education  in  this  country  has  come 
from  without  the  universities,  and  has  shown  itself 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  285 

in  such  movements  as  Chautauqua,  and  the  peo- 
ple's colleges  which  have  sprung  up  in  various  parts 
of  the  country,  and  especially  in  our  tremendous 
schools  of  correspondence,  —  some  of  them  two 
hundred  thousand  strong  !  —  designed  to  meet  the 
needs  of  people  in  quest  of  knowledge  in  out-of- 
the-way  corners  of  the  land.  Now  this  outside 
impulse  has  been  very  genuine,  and  when  you 
consider  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  it  has  been 
marvelously  successful.  In  the  face  of  this  wealth 
of  opportunity,  one  might  be  tempted  to  call 
hands  off,  and  to  declare  that  any  man  or  woman 
in  America,  with  the  proper  spirit,  already  has  suf- 
ficient chances.  But  this  negative  attitude  does  not 
represent  the  conception  of  the  social  state.  The 
social  state  entertains  a  much  more  positive  con- 
ception than  this.  It  is  not  satisfied  to  leave  social 
betterment  to  chance.  It  would  bring  human 
wealth  within  reach,  within  easy  reach,  indeed 
(God  knows  heredity  will  make  the  taking  of  it 
hard  enough),  and  even  with  gentle  insistence 
would  press  it  upon  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
state. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  the  universities 
have  been  apathetic  in  this  matter  of  adult  educa- 
tion. Much  of  the  work  just  enumerated  has  been 
carried  on,  and  carried  on  with  devotion  and  glad- 
ness, by  university  men.  Furthermore,  the  univer- 
sities have  ministered  most  nobly  to  the  same  adult 
needs  in  the  summer  schools,  which  a  number  of 
them  have  established,  and  which  represent  an 


286  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

openness  of  opportunity  quite  in  excess  of  anything 
offered  in  the  regular  courses. 

We  see,  then,  on  the  one  side,  a  multitude  of 
men  and  women  genuinely  desirous  of  further  and 
higher  education,  and  on  the  other  side  a  number 
of  universities  genuinely  desirous  of  spreading  the 
higher  education  abroad,  but  hampered  by  their 
own  traditions  and  a  sense  of  their  own  righteous 
requirements.  And  meanwhile  we  see  the  multi- 
tude turning  to  those  outside  agencies  of  culture, 
agencies  which  lack  the  personnel  and  equipment 
of  the  great  universities,  but  which  are  available, 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  effective. 

Even  within  the  universities  one  finds  uncer- 
tainty in  regard  to  their  proper  function.  There 
has  been  a  notable  growth  of  the  university  spirit 
within  the  past  decade,  but  there  are  still  institu- 
tions which  do  not  seem  to  know  whether  they  are 
colleges  or  universities. 

The  traditional  American  college  occupies,  per- 
haps, the  most  uncertain  position  of  all.  The  old 
four-year  course  of  undergraduate  study  is  being 
seriously  entrenched  upon  by  the  advanced  work 
done  in  the  best  high  schools,  and  young  people  of 
twenly  are  asking  increasingly  for  the  freedom  of 
study  and  choice  of  subject  involved  in  the  uni- 
versity idea.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  manifest 
destiny  of  the  typical  college,  with  its  prescribed 
studies  and  narrower  ideals  of  service,  is  either  to 
disappear  entirely,  or  to  emerge  into  the  greater 
freedom  and  election  of  the  university.     This  latter 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  287 

is  the  condition  of  affairs  which  represents  the 
largest  measure  of  practical  simplicity.  It  prevails 
in  Switzerland,  and,  with  certain  undemocratic 
restrictions,  in  Germany.  In  both  countries  the 
native  students  pass  through  the  lower  school  and 
the  Gymnasium^  representing  a  combined  process 
of  nine  years,  and,  on  graduation,  may  enter  any 
Swiss  or  German  university  without  further  exam- 
ination. In  the  Gymnasium,  the  students  receive 
a  good  general  education  along  certain  lines,  an 
effective  training  in  language  and  mathematics, 
somewhat  less  effective  in  science,  and  almost  no- 
thing in  the  way  of  manual  training  and  gymnastic. 
At  the  university,  the  studies  are  elective,  the 
attendance  is  voluntary,  the  degree  is  given  for 
actual  work  done,  —  an  acceptable  thesis  showing 
the  power  of  original  investigation  in  one's  major 
study,  an  examination  in  that  and  in  two  minor  re- 
lated studies.  In  many  of  the  German  universities 
there  is  a  prescribed  residence,  but  in  Switzerland 
there  is  in  this,  as-  in  everything  else,  the  utmost 
freedom.  One  remains  for  as  long  or  as  short  a 
period  as  one  will,  several  years  or  several  weeks ; 
the  degree  is  given  for  qualification,  not  for  any 
amount  of  mechanical  compliance.  The  Swiss 
universities  are  quite  consistent  with  the  political 
ideal  of  the  nation.  They  are  open  to  men  and 
women  alike,  open,  indeed,  to  everybody  who  cares 
to  use  them,  and  the  use  may  be  very  partial  or 
very  complete.  There  are  no  entrance  examina- 
tions, no  prescribed  studies,  no  time  requirement 


288  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

They  are  thoroughly  democratic.  One  who  has 
tasted  this  open  freedom,  and  has  experienced  the 
delight  of  working  purely  for  the  work's  sake, 
finds  the  walls  and  hedges  built  around  American 
education  sadly  irksome. 

In  England,  which  is  one  of  the  most  democratic 
countries  in  the  world,  the  universities  are  curiously 
undemocratic.  They  are  still  the  institutions  of 
privilege  and  separation. 

In  such  a  time  of  transition  as  the  present,  it 
is  particularly  pertinent  to  inquire  what  direction 
the  American  university  is  to  take,  if  it  is  to  be 
an  operation  of  that  complete  and  lifelong  culture 
which  comes  from  applying  the  philosophic  idea  to 
the  practical  details  of  daily  life.  In  reality,  the 
inquiry  is  very  simple,  just  as  soon  as  one  comes  to 
look  at  the  university  in  this  light ;  not  as  a  dis- 
tinct institution,  but  merely  as  a  part  of  that  edu- 
cational process  which  covers  the  whole  of  life  and 
has  for  its  sole  function  the  realizing  of  the  social 
purpose.  For  practical  convenience,  the  imiversity 
sums  up  that  part  of  the  process  which  has  to  do 
with  men  and  women.  Like  the  process  of  child- 
hood and  the  process  of  youth,  the  university  must 
get  itself  realized  in  the  present  moment,  and 
similar  to  them  in  spirit,  it  must  take  men  and 
women  as  it  finds  them,  —  not  selected,  favored 
men  and  women,  but  men  and  women  as  they  are, 
—  and  must  carry  out  the  social  purpose  in  them, 
the  creating  of  organic  human  wealth,  the  bringing 
about  of  human  accomplishment  and  beauty  and 
power. 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  289 

The  one  requirement  that  the  process  of  the 
university  must  be  contemporary  simplifies  matters 
quite  as  thoroughly  as  the  similar  requirement 
simplified  them  in  the  high  school  and  the  lower 
school.  Here  are  men  and  women  to  be  led  into  a 
larger  emotional  and  intellectual  and  bodily  life, 
into  the  better  kingdom  of  the  more  perfect  life. 
It  is  a  present  need.  And  the  university  is  the 
social  process  for  helping  on  this  growth.  It  is  a 
present  opportunity.  No  condition  may  properly 
interpose  itself  between  the  two.  As  a  contem- 
porary process,  the  university  may  not  send  long 
fingers  into  the  past  in  the  way  oi  entrance  exam- 
inations. It  must  dispense  with  these  altogether. 
In  doing  this,  the  university  is  not  only  fulfilling 
its  own  function,  but  it  is  once  for  all  freeing  the 
high  school  from  external  pressure  just  as  the 
abolition  of  entrance  examinations  in  the  high 
school  freed  the  lowfer  schools  from  external  pres- 
sure. It  declares  the  open  door  all  along  the  line. 
When  you  have  done  this,  you  have  made  the 
idealizing  of  secondary  education  possible.  As  the 
agent  of  a  larger  purpose,  the  university  must  re- 
strict its  process  to  the  present  moment,  and  must 
not,  by  its  requirements,  fetter  the  earlier  processes 
of  education.  Where  these  processes  have  been 
well  carried  out,  the  young  people  have  had  the 
best  possible  preparation  for  the  university.  Where 
these  processes  have  not  been  well  carried  out,  it 's 
a  pity,  but  this  does  not  absolve  the  university 
from  its  own  special  function.    As  a  social  process, 


290  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  university  may  not  decline  the  work  proper  to 
it,  simply  because  there  has  been  failure  or  only 
partial  success  further  back  along  the  line.  There 
is  indeed  the  greater  reason  why  the  university 
should  be  the  more  urgent  and  the  more  pains-- 
taking  in  its  own  ministrations.  It  is  surely  a 
thoroughly  bad  policy,  socially  speaking,  to  stiU 
further  neglect  those  who  have  been  already  neg- 
lected. But  this  is  practically  what  the  universi- 
ties have  been  doing,  and  this  is  the  reason  that 
Chautauqua  and  university  extension  and  the  peo- 
ple's colleges,  and  the  schools  of  correspondence 
and  the  summer  schools  and  all  that  we  may  call 
the  extra-official  machinery  of  education,  have 
sprung  up  so  abundantly  and  have  met  so  large  a 
popular  need. 

This  doing  away  of  entrance  examinations  would 
be  a  great  benefit  to  the  university  itself.  It  is  far 
more  wholesome  for  the  univAsity  teachers  to  put 
their  whole  energy  into  artistic  work,  into  the  work 
of  presenting  their  subjects  just  as  clearly  and  just 
as  well  as  they  possibly  can.  It  has  been  said  that 
we  have  the  best  teaching  in  the  kindergarten  and 
the  worst  in  the  universities.  This  has,  of  course, 
much  of  that  exaggeration  to  be  found  in  most 
picturesque  statements,  but  there  is  at  least  a  grain 
of  truth  in  it.  The  university  teacher  is  charac- 
terized by  a  knowledge  of  his  subject  rather  than 
by  his  art  in  presenting  it.  If  the  amount  of  en- 
ergy which  now  goes  into  keeping  students  out  of 
the  university  could  be  turned  to  account  in  help 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  291 

ing  them  after  they  get  in,  the  cause  of  culture 
would  be  considerably  furthered.  The  art  of  the 
university  teacher  does  not  end  with  presentation. 
In  addition,  he  has  an  immense  field  in  the  way  of 
helping  individual  students,  explaining,  illustrating, 
simplifying,  and  a  still  more  important  field  in  the 
matter  of  strengthening  the  inner  impulse,  the 
motive  power  of  the  student  life.  This  triple  task 
is  quite  enough,  and  it  is  one  into  which  a  sturdy, 
red-blooded  man  could  throw  his  whole  heart.  The 
task  is  one  of  social  service,  and  it  has  about  it  the 
joy  and  refreshment  which  come  from  rendering 
social  service.  It  is,  in  a  word,  a  worthy  and  sig- 
nificant task. 

Furthermore,  this  doing  away  of  the  entrance 
examinations  has,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
university,  the  added  merit  of  disposing  once  for 
all  of  that  apparently  endless  task,  the  task  of 
making  the  entrance  requirements  uniform.  The 
conventions  which  have  been  held,  the  beautiful 
holidays  which  have  been  used  up,  the  brain  mat- 
ter which  has  been  exhausted,  in  trying  to  recon- 
cile the  conflicting  requirements  of  our  American 
universities,  represent  an  appalling  waste  of  time 
and  energy.  To  restrict  the  university  to  the 
present  moment  is  to  unlock  all  these  doors,  and  to 
make  them  uniform  in  making  them  all  wide  open. 

As  the  process  of  a  social  purpose  which  is 
democratic,  the  university  may  not  select  its  ma- 
terial, may  not  exclude  men  and  women  on  any 
pretense.     The  greater  their  necessity,  the  greater 


»2  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  university  opportunity.  The  very  name  of  the 
university  has  this  all-comprehensiveness.  Just  as 
it  is  a  place  to  gather  all  knowledge,  so  is  it  a 
place  to  gather  all  adult  seekers  after  knowledge, 
—  it  is  a  process  of  the  whole.  We  people  who 
ask  of  the  university  this  universality  of  purpose, 
we  people  who  believe  in  the  university  as  the  last 
term  in  our  scheme  of  formal  education,  believe  in 
it  as  the  inclusive  process  of  manhood  and  woman- 
hood, do  not  for  one  moment  ask  this  universality 
as  a  favor.  We  ask  it  that  the  university  itself 
may  fulfill  its  high  function,  may  escape  the  nar- 
rowness and  provincialism  which  now  cling  about  it 
and  about  some  of  its  teachers,  and  may  come  once 
for  all  into  the  democratic  open. 

This,  it  seems  to  me,  would  represent  a  glorious 
ideal,  an  institution  standing  in  our  midst  as  the 
upholder  of  the  best  truth  we  know,  and  ready  to 
give  this  truth  in  small  or  large  measure  to  the 
least  and  to  the  greatest. 

The  present  attitude  of  the  universities  is  exclu- 
sive, and,  quite  without  intention,  even  unfriendly. 
They  are  looked  upon  by  the  masses  with  a  touch 
of  suspicion.  If  the  universities  could  be  the 
centre  of  our  national  aspiration  towards  perfec- 
tion, could  be  the  efficient  helper  of  our  working- 
men  and  workingwomen,  there  would  come  to  the 
universities  that  strength  and  power  which  come 
to  every  man  and  every  institution  made  by  reason 
of  appreciated  service  the  centre  of  popular  devo- 
tion and  interest.     And  this  larger  role  the  univer- 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  293 

sities  have  it  in  their  power  to  play  if  they  will  but 
open  their  doors  to  all  men  and  women,  and  wiU 
give  the  same  welcome  to  the  hard-pressed  student 
worker  who  can  afford  time  for  but  one  course,  that 
they  now  extend  only  to  those  who  take  many 
courses  and  ostensibly  give  their  whole  time  to  it. 

And  now  let  us  change  the  point  of  view  to  that 
of  the  men  and  women  who  would  go  to  the  uni- 
versity. If  these  men  and  women  have  gone 
through  the  lower  school  such  as  we  have  pictured 
it,  and  the  high  school,  they  are  already  young 
people  of  power,  and  well  grounded  in  the  elements 
of  language  and  mathematics  and  science.  They 
have,  moreover,  strong  and  beautiful  bodies,  well- 
trained  senses,  developed  brain  matter,  alert  spirits. 
In  age,  they  wiU  be  from  nineteen  to  twenty  years, 
quite  old  enough  to  undertake  the  advanced  work 
of  a  modern  three-year  university,  and  to  do  it  in 
a  properly  mature  way.  They  represent,  in  fact, 
excellent  human  material  for  the  university  pro- 
cess. 

This  state  of  wholesome  preparation  will  be 
increasingly  the  normal  situation.  As  the  lower 
school  is  recognized  as  the  educational  process  of 
all  childhood,  and  the  high  school  as  the  educa- 
tional process  of  all  youth,  the  social  purpose  will 
be  carried  out  in  this  inclusive  fashion,  and  will 
not  be  content  to  leave  so  many  of  its  children  to 
be  provided  for  later  by  the  more  expensive  and 
infinitely  less  satisfactory  process  of  the  poorhouse 
and  the  asylum  and  the  penitentiary.     There  is  but 


294  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

one  way  to  cure  social  deficiency,  —  it  is  to  stop 
the  supply. 

But  there  will  always  be  some  exceptions ;  and 
to-day,  as  a  result  of  our  individualistic  adminis- 
tration of  the  national  resources,  a  very  bad  admin- 
istration in  my  own  way  of  looking  at  it,  the  ex- 
ceptions far  outnumber  the  rule.  At  the  present 
moment  there  is  no  adequate  provision  by  which 
this  multitude  of  irregulars  can  have  the  advantage 
of  the  university.  They  are  not  prepared  to  take 
the  entrance  examinations,  and  there  is  no  place 
where  they  can  prepare.  They  can  take  a  private 
tutor,  but  this  is  expensive  and  in  general  most 
unsatisfactory.  They  cannot  go  to  the  high  schools, 
for  they  are  out  of  line,  even  for  those  institutions. 
Even  if  they  could  go  to  the  high  schools,  it  would 
be  a  poor  solution  of  the  problem.  Men  and  wo- 
men do  not  care  to  study  in  the  same  classes  with 
boys  and  girls,  for  they  have  a  different  mental 
habit  and  a  different  rate  of  speed  ;  and  then,  too, 
there  is  a  sensitiveness  on  the  part  of  these  older 
people  which,  however  unreasonable  it  may  seem  in 
the  abstract,  is  nevertheless  a  genuine  obstacle. 

All  these  circumstances,  under  our  present  edu- 
cational regime,  combine  to  withhold  education  from 
the  great  majority  of  those  who  have  missed  its 
early  advantages  ;  and  since  this  missing  of  early 
advantages  is  usually  the  misfortune  rather  than 
the  fault  of  our  multitudinous  irregulars,  we  are, 
it  seems  to  me,  treating  their  aspirations  with  man- 
ifest harshness  and  injustice.     We  are  throwing 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  205 

them  over  to  a  blind  fate  instead  of  making  intelli- 
gent provision  for  them ;  allowing,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  long  summer  holiday  for  the  children  who 
cannot  go  out  of  town,  allowing  the  social  purpose 
to  come  quite  to  a  standstill ;  only  in  this  case  it  is 
for  the  entire  year  instead  of  for  several  months. 
I  cannot  feel  that  this  is  a  causational,  practical 
way  of  dealing  with  the  social  problem.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  only  way  we  can  deal  with  the 
problem  successfully  is  to  make  the  university 
the  process  of  democracy,  the  social  process  for  the 
betterment  of  all  men  and  women.  And  this 
necessitates  the  open  door. 

Let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  and  see  just 
what  this  open  door  of  opportunity  would  mean. 

I  can  readily  imagine  that  there  are  many  good 
and  earnest  people  who  will  be  quite  shocked  at 
the  bare  proposition  to  do  away  with  entrance  ex- 
aminations at  the  university,  and  who  will  regard 
such  a  departure  as  ushering  in  another  dark  age. 
But  this  whole  scheme  of  organic  social  education, 
as  I  have  been  emphasizing  with  perhaps  tiresome 
insistence,  is  admirable,  is  indeed  moral,  only  so 
far  as  it  is  practical ;  and  as  a  part  of  this  scheme 
the  open  door  of  the  university  must  submit  to  the 
same  test. 

The  whole  idea  of  a  university  is  to  offer  oppor- 
tunity for  study  in  all  departments  of  human  in- 
quiry, in  philosophy,  language,  history,  mathemat- 
ics, science,  art,  law,  medicine,  and  theology.  It  is 
a  tremendous  idea,  but  one  that  our  great  univer- 


296  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

sities  come  pretty  near  to  realizing.  Now  my  point 
is  that  to  offer  this  opportunity  well  is  the  sole  func- 
tion of  the  university,  and  that  to  use  it  well  is  the 
sole  function  of  the  student.  Neither  member  of 
the  joint  alliance  may  properly  interfere  with  the 
function  of  the  other.  The  responsibility  of  artis- 
tic, effective  presentation  rests  with  the  university. 
The  responsibility  of  sound  scholarship  rests  with 
the  student.  It  is  not  necessary  to  build  walls  and 
to  dig  ditches  about  the  courses  of  study.  They 
are  attractive  only  to  those  who  have  some  taste  in 
that  direction  and  some  power  of  assimilation.  It 
is  of  80  great  importance  to  no  one  as  to  the  stu~ 
dent  himself  that  he  shall  only  undertake  work 
for  which  he  has  adequate  preparation,  and  in 
which  there  is  reasonable  hope  of  success.  This  is 
quite  worth  remembering.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
make  laws  against  swimming  the  Hudson  until  one 
has  passed  a  searching  examination  in  the  natato- 
rium.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  all  the  courses 
in  mathematics  were  thrown  open  to  the  public,  the 
courses  in  geometry,  algebra, 'arithmetic,  trigono- 
metry, analytics,  calculus,  differential  equations, 
quaternions,  and  the  rest.  The  public  has  never 
shown  an  undue  greediness  for  mathematics.  It 
is  altogether  improbable  that  any  student  would 
enter  the  course  in  calculus,  pay  the  fee  if  there  be 
one,  and  day  after  day  attend  the  lesson,  unless  he 
had  done  sufficient  preliminary  work  to  make  the 
course  intelligible  and  to  give  him  some  hope  of 
success.     It  is  not  necessary  at  the  library  to  lock 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  29T 

np  La  Place's  "  Mecanique  Celeste  "  or  Clerk  Max- 
well's "  Electricity."  And  it  is  the  same  all  along 
the  line.  It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  any  young 
man  or  young  woman  would  enter  second-year 
French  or  second-year  German  if  they  had  not 
done  the  first-year  work.  People  are  not  so  anx- 
ious to  be  bored.  And  the  responsibility  for  prac- 
tical, effective  action  is  one  of  the  most  important 
lessons  which  school  and  university  have  to  teach. 
It  can  be  taught  only  as  an  art,  by  putting  this  in- 
creasing responsibility  on  the  students  themselves. 
To  open  the  door  of  the  university  would  be  a 
much  easier  and  simpler  matter  than  we  are  prone 
to  imagine.  It  could  be  done  successfully  to-mor- 
row. The  only  change  in  the  curriculum  that 
we  should  have  to  make  would  be  to  see  that  all 
departments  of  study  offered  initial  as  well  as 
advanced  work.  By  numbering  the  courses  con- 
secutively, it  would  be  very  easy  to  indicate  to  the 
outside  world  what  the  university  regarded  as  the 
proper  or  necessary  sequence.  I  have  found,  my- 
self, as  a  matter  of  practical  experience,  that  shi- 
dents  are  far  more  anxious  to  be  wisely  guided  in 
their  work  than  we  can  possibly  be  to  so  guide 
them.  Furthermore,  an  explicit  statement  in  the 
catalogue,  at  the  beginning  of  each  department  of 
study,  could  be  offered  by  way  of  suggestion  as  to 
necessary  or  advisable  sequence,  alternative,  or 
combination.  A  boy  who  wants  to  be  an  excellent 
physician,  and  who  reads  on  such  authority  that 
hivi  best  plan  is  to  take  the  courses  in  biology  first, 


298  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

and  to  pass  from  that  department  to  medicine,  will 
be  delighted  to  receive  the  suggestion  and  to  carry- 
it  out.  The  initial  courses  may  be  made  parallel 
to  the  high-school  courses  in  the  same  branch,  so 
that  regularly  prepared  students  wiU  not  duplicate 
their  work,  while  at  the  same  time  if  any  one  course 
at  the  high  school,  through  illness,  or  inaptitude,  or 
even  inattention,  has  not  been  met  successfully,  the 
gap  may  here  be  made  good.  Those  who  are  quite 
unprepared  may  set  to  work  at  once  to  remove  their 
disabilities. 

Now  this  plan  is  not  very  revolutionary,  is  not 
indeed  at  all  revolutionary.  Already  the  universi- 
ties offer  initial  work  in  all  unusual  departments 
of  study,  such  as  Hebrew  or  Sanskrit,  and  even  in 
modem  languages  and  in  science.  It  would  require 
a  very  slight  extension  of  the  curriculum  to  make  it 
possible  for  any  one,  man  or  woman,  young  or  old, 
full  student  or  partial  student,  to  go  to  a  univer- 
sity and  begin  work  in  any  department  of  study, 
and  to  carry  it  just  as  far  as  individual  need  might 
Inquire.  And  this  universality  of  purpose  and 
process  and  service,  I  conceive  to  be  the  true  func- 
tion of  the  university.  Nothing  less  than  this  is 
the  realization  of  our  superb  social  purpose,  the 
making  the  best  that  is  possible  out  of  every  single 
individual. 

At  the  present  moment,  the  operation  of  going 
to  college  is  a  somewhat  elaborate  operation,  so 
elaborate  that  numbers  of  unsophisticated  persons 
are  quite  deterred  from  at  all  making  the  attempt. 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  299 

It  means  the  ordeal  of  an  examination  now  so 
comprehensive  that  it  is  commonly  divided  into 
two  parts  and  separated  by  an  interval  of  a  year. 
It  means,  in  most  cases,  the  going  away  from 
home,  and  the  remaining  for  four  years  at  an  ex- 
pense of  several  hundred  dollars  a  year.  It  means, 
in  many  cases,  the  relinquishment  of  home  duties 
and  opportunities  of  service  which  ought  not  to 
be  relinquished.  These  requirements  are  some- 
what appalling  to  all,  and  to  many  they  are  simply 
impossible. 

A  small  boy,  a  friend  of  mine,  who  had  been 
listening  very  attentively  to  an  enumeration  of  the 
Harvard  requirements,  said  with  a  sigh,  "  Dear 
me,  I  wish  I  were  growing  littler  instead  of  big- 
ger." 

To  make  the  university,  then,  the  educational  pro- 
cess of  manhood  and  womanhood  in  any  complete 
sense  would  require  a  greater  number  of  small  in- 
stitutions near  the  homes  of  the  people ;  would 
require  an  absolutely  open  door;  would  require 
perfect  liberty  to  take  one  or  several  courses  as 
circumstances  made  it  possible  and  wise. 

These  are  not  difficult  or  unreasonable  require- 
ments, nor  need  they  interfere  with  the  granting 
of  degrees,  should  that  bit  of  formalism  continue 
to  be  prized.  It  is  a  very  simple  matter  to  label 
a  student  bachelor  or  master  or  doctor  when  he 
has  successfully  taken  a  given  number  of  courses, 
and  this  is  indeed  the  growing  custom  at  the  pre- 
sent time.   There  is  a  marked  tendency  to  limit  the 


300  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

time  requirement  for  the  bachelor's  degree  to  three 
years,  or  eighteen  full  courses,  and  to  make  one 
degree,  the  bachelor  of  arts,  stand  for  this  amount 
of  mental  discipline,  quite  regardless  of  the  sub- 
jects through  which  it  has  been  gained.  The 
initial  courses  suggested  in  language  and  mathe- 
matics, such  as  are  parallel  with  high-school  work, 
need  not  count  towards  the  degree,  and  there  need 
be  no  lowering  of  the  present  standard.  But  it  is 
even  simpler  to  omit  the  label  altogether,  and  cer- 
tify in  some  official  way  just  what  work  has  been 
accomplished.  We  all  know  so  many  unwise  per- 
sons who  are  doctors  of  philosophy  and  so  many 
wise  ones  who  are  not  that  the  value  of  degrees 
does  become  increasingly  casual.  They  are  at 
best  only  a  shortiiand  way  of  certifying  that  one 
has  submitted  to  regular  intellectual  discipline, 
and  the  more  specific  record  would  really  tell  a 
story  more  to  the  point.  Furthermore,  when  the 
university  becomes  the  social  process  of  all  man- 
hood and  womanhood,  its  ministration  will  be 
taken  for  granted,  and  there  will  be  as  little  occa- 
sion for  boasting  of  the  fact  as  there  is  occasion 
at  present  for  an  ordinarily  well-conditioned  citi- 
zen to  mention  that  he  has  had  three  meals  or  his 
daily  bath  or  has  been  telling  the  truth.  And  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  the  best  way  of  proclaim- 
ing that  one  is  wise  is  to  put  it,  not  on  sheepskin, 
but  into  convincing  daily  action. 

In  the  beautiful  city  of  Zurich,  in  Switzerland, 
there  is  an  old  and  famous  university  which  offers 


AT  THE  UNIVERSirr  301 

almost  the  freedom  that  I  have  been  outlining. 
It  was  my  own  good  fortune  to  study  there.  The 
hours  were  long,  but  they  were  voluntary.  There 
was  no  sense  of  rush.  There  was  practically  the 
leisure  to  grow  wise.  The  laboratories  were  open 
from  eight  until  twelve,  and  again  from  two  until 
six.  You  came  and  went  at  your  own  convenience. 
The  professor  was  at  hand,  and  his  assistants. 
The  artisans  were  in  the  workshop  and  ready  to 
serve.  All  of  the  conditions  for  work  were  made 
as  complete  and  favorable  as  possible.  The  lec- 
tures were  in  progress  at  all  hours ;  in  summer,  as 
early  as  from  six  to  seven  in  the  morning,  and  in 
winter,  as  late  as  from  six  to  seven  in  the  even- 
ing. At  the  beginning  of  each  semester  and  for 
two  weeks,  all  courses  were  open.  The  student 
was  free  to  attend  as  many  courses  as  he  cared  to, 
and  judge  whether  they  were  meant  for  him  or 
not.  And  each  professor  and  lecturer  was  in  duty 
bound  to  publish  on  these  opening  days  the  ground 
he  intended  to  cover,  and  to  indicate  his  method 
of  treatment.  At  the  end  of  the  two  weeks,  the 
students  were  expected  to  know  what  courses  they 
wished  to  take,  and  to  enter  upon  them  and  pay 
the  required  fees.  The  fees  were  very  small, 
amounting  in  the  case  of  lecture  courses  to  only 
five  francs  —  one  dollar  —  per  semester  for  each 
hour  of  lecture  a  week.  Thus,  a  lecture  every 
day,  six  a  week,  would  cost  but  six  dollars  for  the 
whole  semester,  or  twelve  dollars  for  the  academic 
year.     The  student  was  not  obliged  to  continue 


302  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

a  course  already  begun.  If  he  had  made  a  mis* 
take,  or  if  the  lecturer  proved  dull  and  unhelpful, 
the  student  was  at  perfect  liberty  to  drop  out  and 
use  his  time  to  better  advantage  elsewhere.  By 
dividing  the  year  into  semesters,  the  student  had 
two  opportunities  of  beginning  new  work,  in  Oc- 
tober and  in  March. 

The  students  were  gathered  from  all  corners  of 
the  earth,  men  and  women,  young  and  old.  One 
class  of  ten  students,  I  remember,  represented 
seven  different  nationalities.  They  studied  differ- 
ent things,  at  different  rates,  for  different  pur- 
poses. The  work  was  self-prompted,  and  in  the 
main,  singularly  earnest,  for  each  student  was  re- 
sponsible to  a  very  exacting  and  very  well-informed 
taskmaster,  that  is  to  say,  to  himself. 

It  was  an  inspiration  to  have  an  old  gentleman 
with  gray  hair  and  time-chiseled  face  sit  next  to 
you  in  the  course  in  geology,  tramp  with  you  in  the 
Black  Forest  or  among  the  lower  Alps,  enriching 
his  older  life  at  the  same  fountains  where  you  were 
enriching  your  younger  one.  He  took  no  other 
work  at  the  university,  but  that  was  his  concern, 
not  the  university's.  The  university  served  him  to 
the  extent  of  this  one  course,  served  him  well,  and 
he  profited  by  it,  —  that  was  enough.  And  it  was 
serious  work,  not  an  exposition  of  the  entire  sci- 
ence in  ten  lectures,  but  the  same  serious  work 
offered  to  the  candidates  for  the  doctor's  degree. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  this  old  gentleman,  with  his 
fine,  earnest  face  and  historic  name,  was  like  a  liv« 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  303 

ing  benediction,  silently  proclaiming  to  the  younger 
men  and  women  the  eternal  value  of  the  best 
knowledge. 

And  so  you  might  go  on  as  you  would,  take  as 
much  as  you  would,  or  as  little  as  you  would,  go  as 
fast  as  you  would,  or  as  slow  as  you  would.  It  was 
the  function  of  the  university  to  present  know- 
ledge. It  was  yours  to  select  and  assimilate.  When 
it  came  to  giving  the  degree,  the  requirements  were 
specific,  but  perfectly  reasonable.  You  selected 
your  major  study,  your  Hauptfdch^  —  in  my  own 
case,  geology,  —  and  quite  in  your  own  way  and  at 
your  own  convenience,  you  worked  out  some  ori- 
ginal problem,  some  problem  of  Alpine  geology,  or 
whatever  might  suit  your  fancy  and  be  possible  at 
that  season  and  in  that  locality.  "When  this  Arbeit 
was  completed,  you  presented  it  to  the  head  pro- 
fessor of  the  department,  and  if  acceptable  to  him 
and  to  his  confrere  in  mineralogy,  you  were  allowed 
to  come  up  for  examination.  But  you  were  quite 
sure  beforehand  that  the  Arbeit  would  be  accept- 
able, for  you  had  gone  over  it  in  the  rough  with 
the  friendly  professor  himself,  sitting  on  the  gallery 
of  his  little  chalet  up  on  the  Ziirichberg,  while  the 
professor's  little  daughter  brought  you  fresh  moun- 
tain strawberries  still  wet  with  dew.  Then  came 
the  examinations.  The  most  important  one  was 
on  the  major  subject,  a  monograph  on  some  topic 
selected  by  yourself  from  a  list  of  several.  You 
were  locked  in  a  little  room,  with  an  unlimited 
quantity  of  paper  and  pens  and  ink  and  the  limited 


304  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

quantity  of  your  own  knowledge.  You  were  free 
to  write  as  much  and  as  long  as  you  would,  —  the 
janitor  brought  you  food.  Then  you  went  home 
and  waited,  a  little  nervously,  perhaps,  until  the 
postman  brought  you  word  that  you  might  go 
ahead  with  the  oral  examinations.  These  were 
three  in  number :  the  major  subject,  geology,  let  us 
say ;  the  obligatory  minor,  in  this  case  mineralogy ; 
and  in  any  second  minor  you  might  select,  such 
as  experimental  physics  or  chemistry.  These  oral 
examinations  were  open  to  the  public.  Each  one 
lasted  for  thirty  minutes,  and  during  that  time  the 
professor  in  charge  was  free  to  ask  any  question 
he  would.  And  yet  it  was  far  from  being  an 
unpleasant  ordeal.  The  professors  were  friendly 
men,  and  their  questions  were  carefully  graded, 
the  difficulty  being  made  less  as  you  passed  from 
your  major  down  to  your  second  minor.  When  it 
is  all  over,  and  the  dean  holds  out  his  hand  and 
says,  "  Herr  doctor,  I  congratulate  you,"  you^re  a 
little  bit  relieved,  but  the  red  tape  has  always  been 
at  a  minimum. 

The  Arbeit  and  the  monograph  may  be  in  any  of 
the  great  languages  of  Europe,  and  even  the  oral 
examinations  are  in  your  native  tongue,  in  case  the 
examining  professor  is  able  to  manage  it.  If  not, 
it  is  in  German,  but  the  professor  says  reassur- 
ingly, "  It  is  the  idea  we  want.  If  you  cannot 
think  of  the  German  word,  use  the  Latin  or  the 
French.  It  is  the  same  to  us,  if  you  have  the 
idea."    And  the  degree  means,  not  at  all  that  you 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  306 

are  a  wise  man,  but  simply  that  you  have  shown 
yourself  able  to  do  original  work  in  your  own  de- 
partment, and  are  equipped  at  least  with  the  tools 
of  the  intellectual  workman. 

This  Swiss  method,  with  very  little  adaptation, 
may  well  serve  as  a  model  for  that  freer  university 
which  is  to  be  the  last  term  in  the  formal  process 
for  carrying  out  the  social  purpose.  It  is  a  psycho- 
logical method,  as  well  as  democratic.  Notice  that 
it  is  a  process  for  carrying  out  the  inner  impulse 
of  men  and  women ;  that  it  is  founded  upon  the 
principle  of  self-activity  quite  as  thoroughly  as  is 
the  kindergarten ;  that  it  not  only  allows,  but  com- 
pels, choice ;  and  finally,  that  it  is  resolutely  a 
process  of  the  present  moment. 

When  we  come  to  make  specific  our  conception 
of  the  American  university,  we  are  forced  to  deal 
with  the  same  practical  details  of  daily  life  as  when 
we  considered  the  process  of  youth  and  of  child- 
hood. To  fulfill  its  office  as  the  agent  of  the  social 
purpose,  the  university  must  stand  for  the  better- 
ment and  development  of  the  adult  world,  and  so 
the  name  represents  in  truth  not  so  much  an  insti- 
tution as  a  national  process.  Viewed  in  this  light, 
the  operations  of  the  university  become  necessary 
rather  than  optional  in  their  character,  wrapped  up 
in  the  philosophic  idea  quite  as  completely  as  all 
other  phases  of  life  and  education  are  wrapped 
up  in  the  one  comprehensive  idea.  To  believe  this 
is  to  see  that  the  university  doors  must  stand  wide 
open  to  all  comers,  that  its  methods  must  be  built 


906  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

upon  the  emotional  life  of  its  students  and  teach- 
ers, upon  their  desires  and  affections,  and  that  its 
operation  must  be  the  causational  one  along  the 
path  of  the  accomplished  organism. 

Our  boys  and  girls  are  now  nineteen,  and  stand 
on  the  threshold  of  manhood  and  womanhood. 
The  university  must  mean  to  them  increased  free- 
dom and  increased  opportunity,  but  it  must  be  a 
process  of  the  twenty-four  hours  and  of  the  twelve 
months.  The  good  health  and  organic  power  built 
up  with  so  much  care  in  the  lower  school  and  in 
the  high  school  must  not  be  squandered  at  the  uni- 
versity. Rather  must  this  wealth  be  conserved  and 
heightened.  The  university,  like  the  schools,  is  a 
culture  process,  and  it  is  the  present  moment  which 
is  to  be  enriched.  No  possible  future  good  may 
obscure  this  fundamental  requirement.  The  flood 
of  personal,  human,  good  fortune  is  a  rising  flood, 
and  may  know  no  ebbing. 

Our  lad  of  nineteen,  or  our  maiden,  must  waken 
to  each  glad  new  day  with  the  same  fresh  enthusi- 
asm which  greeted  the  days  of  childhood  and  youth, 
must  waken,  if  possible,  in  the  same  simple,  beau- 
tiful home,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  same  sincere, 
sympathetic  home  life.  If  family  circumstances 
permit  the  lad  to  give  his  entire  time  to  the  uni- 
versity, he  may  well  complete  his  course  in  three 
years  without  pressure,  without  worry,  and  without 
loss  of  health.  And  this  would  be  especially  the 
case  if  the  course,  instead  of  being  six  or  seven 
months  long,  should  cover  ten  or  eleven  months. 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  307 

Long  hours  are  no  disadvantage,  provided  they  are 
wholesomely  spent.  Our  lad  may  well  go  to  the 
university  from  nine,  or  even  from  eight  o'clock  in 
the  morning  until  twelve,  and  again  from  two 
until  six,  provided  he  have  Sunday  and  one,  or 
possibly  two,  afternoons  a  week  off  for  other  ex- 
periences, and  have  his  evenings  free  for  family 
and  social  life,  for  music,  conversation,  games, 
reading.  And  this  can  be  perfectly  well  arranged. 
No  student  ought  to  take  more  than  six  courses, 
of  which  at  least  two  may  profitably  be  laboratory 
courses.  If  we  suppose  six  mornings  of  four  hours 
to  be  at  our  disposal,  we  can  readily  cover  the  four 
lecture  courses  in  the  mornings,  not  one  hour  each 
day,  but  two  hours  three  times  a  week.  This  would 
permit  a  lecture  and  a  succeeding  seminar,  or  a 
succeeding  study  period,  and  if  well  used,  would 
be  amply  sufficient  without  home  work.  By  hav- 
ing only  two  subjects  during  the  morning,  and  pre- 
ferably two  related  subjects,  the  attention  is  not 
dissipated,  and  one  may  do  ample  justice  to  the 
studies  without  undue  fatigue.  Furthermore,  each 
lecture  should  contain  a  distinct  thought  by  way  of 
nucleus,  a  thought  which  may  be  anticipated  at  the 
close  of  the  preceding  lecture,  and  reiterated  at 
the  beginning  of  the  succeeding  one.  In  this  way 
each  salient  point  would  receive  mention  three 
times,  first  as  a  preliminary  statement,  then  as  a 
full  and  extended  exposition,  and  finally  as  a  brief 
summary.  The  discussion  between  student  and 
professor,  personal  explanation,  parallel  reading, 


308  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

and  the  following  out  of  interesting  by-paths  may 
well  occupy  the  succeeding  hour.  But  my  special 
point  is  that  the  work  should  be  done  at  the  uni- 
versity, in  properly  equipped  rooms,  with  proper 
guidance  and  assistance,  that  the  attention  should 
be  concentrated  on  one  or  two  subjects  and  on  one 
point  within  the  subject,  and  that  the  time  outside 
of  the  university  should  be  absolutely  free. 

One  matter  in  which  all  industrial  reformers  are 
very  keen  is  that  individual  work  shall  be  done  in 
the  establishment  itself  under  hygienic  conditions, 
and  shall  not  be  farmed  out  to  home  contractors, 
for  it  is  the  latter  practice  which  has  given  rise  to 
the  "sweat  shop,"  with  all  of  its  tragic  sorrows. 
No  firm  is  admitted  to  the  "  white  list "  of  the  city 
if  its  wares  are  the  product  of  this  inhuman  sweat- 
ing.    The  application  is  obvious. 

If  the  laboratory  work  be  confined  to  the  after- 
noons and  we  have  four  afternoons  at  our  disposal, 
of  four  hours  each,  we  may  have  two  laboratory 
courses  well  given,  for  each  course  would  have 
eight  hours.  The  time  may  be  divided  into  four 
two-hour  periods  or  into  two  four-hour  periods,  as 
circumstances  make  the  more  advisable.  Or,  if 
two  three-hour  periods  suffice,  and  they  would  in 
most  branches,  the  extra  hour  may  well  be  given 
to  the  gymnasium  and  the  swimming  tank.  In 
any  case,  there  must  be  the  most  ample  provision 
for  good  health.  If  the  gymnasium  cannot  be 
compassed  during  the  afternoon,  it  must  come  sev- 
eral times  a  week  during  the  evening.     Further- 


AT  THE  UmVERSITY  80O 

more,  a  large  part  of  Sunday,  of  the  two  free 
afternoons,  and  even  a  fair  slice  of  each  noon  in- 
termission ought  to  be  spent  in  the  open  in  good, 
vigorous,  sociable  exercise. 

It  is  held  by  many  persons  whose  opinion  is 
entitled  to  all  respect,  that  one  great  advantage  of 
our  present  system  of  large  and  distant  colleges  is 
the  sending  a  boy  away  from  home,  throwing  him 
on  his  own  resources,  making  a  man  of  him.  This 
is  perfectly  true  if  the  home  be  an  unwise  one. 
But  there  is  nothing  in  all  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  land  that  is  the  equivalent  of  a  wise  home ; 
for  it  is  the  home  which  is  the  social  unit ;  it  is 
the  home  whose  perfecting  means  the  fulfillment  of 
the  social  purpose ;  it  is  in  the  home  that  the  race 
life  and  the  individual  life  are  to  be  purified  and 
redeemed. 

To  send  a  boy  out  of  a  wise  home  into  the  care- 
less life  of  a  college  dormitory  or  students'  boarding- 
house  is  a  singular  piece  of  infatuation.  To  sud- 
denly absolve  him  from  all  home  duties  is  to  make 
the  lad  selfish;  to  cut  him  adrift  from  care  and 
sympathy  is  to  expose  him  unduly  to  temptation ; 
to  starve  his  emotional  life  is  to  lessen  the  whole- 
some power  of  sentiment.  In  the  wise  home,  oar 
lad  has  always  had  freedom ;  his  life  has  been  the 
expression  of  his  own  inner  impulse,  and  it  has 
been  carried  out  through  his  own  selfractivity.  He 
has  been  shielded  from  evil  on  the  same  hygienic 
principle  that  he  has  been  shielded  from  sewer  gas 
and  malaria,  because  diphtheria  and  chills  and 


310  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

fever  are  not  good  for  him.  And  as  to  making  a 
man  of  him,  as  the  phrase  commonly  goes,  it  means 
rubbing  off  the  bloom,  making  him  something  less 
sweet  and  clean  than  he  need  to  have  been.  The 
staunchest  trees,  the  oaks  and  elms  and  cedars, 
grow  slowly  and  live  long.  As  we  want  our  lad 
to  make  the  fullest  measure  of  a  man,  it  were  well 
not  to  press  his  manhood,  but  to  let  it  come  nat- 
urally and  joyously  as  the  full  summer  follows  on 
the  springtime.  At  nineteen,  if  he  has  had  wise 
teachers  and  parents,  he  does  not  have  to  learn 
the  essential  things  of  life,  the  working  of  his  own 
body,  the  prompting  of  sex,  the  changes  which  dif- 
ferentiate manhood  from  boyhood,  and  especially 
he  does  not  have  to  learn  all  this  through  the  min- 
istration of  evil  and  vulgarity.  He  has  learned  it 
from  purer  and  better  sources. 

There  comes  eventually  a  time  when  our  young 
collegian  will  profitably  go  away  from  home,  not 
to  exploit  the  problem  of  good  and  evil  by  the 
crudest  sort  of  experimenting,  but  rather  to  in- 
crease his  knowledge  and  experience  of  the  good. 
In  more  evolved  times  each  community  will  have  its 
university  just  as  it  now  has  its  high  school.  But 
these  smaller  universities  cannot  each  offer  all  the 
branches  of  human  knowledge.  They  may  each 
offer  the  more  fundamental  branches,  and  leave 
special  lines  of  inquiry  to  larger  and  more  central 
institutions,  or  else  each  smaller  university  may 
offer  the  fundamentals  and  one  or  more  specialties. 
I  like  the  latter  plan  the  better,  as  insuring  the 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  311 

greater  vitality.  In  either  case,  there  would  be  a 
natural  and  wholesome  movement  of  older  students 
from  place  to  place,  pursuing  the  more  advanced 
work  of  the  latter  part  of  their  course  wherever 
they  could  do  it  to  the  best  advantage.  This  in- 
terchange could  be  accomplished  with  the  greatest 
simplicity  and  democracy,  it  seems  to  me,  if,  in 
place  of  dormitories  and  boarding-houses,  the  stu- 
dent went  from  his  own  home  into  some  other  home, 
made  partly  vacant  by  the  temporary  absence  of  a 
student,  —  son  or  daughter,  —  or  made  additionally 
hospitable  by  the  growth  of  the  social  and  university 
spirit.  This  arrangement  might  be  the  occasion 
of  much  good  on  both  sides,  and  it  would  have  the 
great  practical  advantage  of  robbing  the  peripa- 
tetic philosophers  of  any  additional  expense. 

It  is  highly  important  that  the  university  should 
take  up  the  work  of  education  where  the  high  school 
drops  it,  but  it  is  equally  important  that  the  univer- 
sity should  also  minister  to  the  intellectual  needs 
of  that  larger  part  of  the  community  which  may 
not  give  all  its  time  to  the  formal  process,  —  the 
son  who  is  the  necessary  support  of  his  family,  the 
daughter  who  must  devote  a  large  part  of  her  time 
to  an  invalid  mother,  the  father  who  is  busy  with 
the  bread-and-butter  problem,  the  mother  who  has 
pressing  home  duties.  At  present  we  make  no 
adequate  provision  for  these  needs.  Yet  we  could 
meet  them  very  readily  if  we  held  that  broader 
conception  of  the  function  of  the  university.  A 
local  university  with  its  doors  open  to  all  comers, 


812  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

to  the  follower  of  one  course  quite  as  cordially  as 
to  the  follower  of  six,  could  be  an  immense  force 
for  good  in  our  community,  saving  spinsters  and 
other  less  occupied  persons  from  the  inanities  of 
afternoon  teas  and  card-playing,  and  making  cul- 
ture a  vital,  ever-available  thing.  A  lecture  course 
requiring  six  hours  per  week,  or  a  laboratory  course 
requiring  eight,  would  be  possible  in  many  a  busy 
life;  and  in  many  a  frivolous  life  might  be  the 
beginning  of  better  things.  When  we  become  a 
moral  and  esthetic  people,  we  shall  have  done  with 
illness  and  invalidism,  but  the  day  is  still  distant. 
Meanwhile,  we  have  in  our  midst  many  young 
persons  of  deficient  strength,  who  cannot  take  six 
courses  a  year  under  any  conditions  whatsoever, 
but  who  could  with  great  benefit  take  two  or  three 
courses.  These  are  matters  worthy  of  our  very 
grave  consideration. 

It  is  not  an  idle  dream,  this  thought  that  we 
might  have  in  every  community  a  university  with 
the  outstretched  hand  of  intellectual  comradeship 
for  every  man  and  woman :  it  is  a  very  practical 
possibility.  To  carry  out  the  plan  we  have  only 
to  desire  it.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  obstacles  are 
mental.  But  already  we  have  sufficient  good-will 
in  the  community  to  realize  the  plan,  if  this  good- 
will could  be  concentrated  upon  such  an  ideal  and 
turned  to  its  practical  realization.  And  there  is 
sufficient  spirit-hunger  on  the  part  of  the  people 
to  make  this  democratizing  of  the  university  a 
reality  of  service.    It  is  a  pleasant  picture  to  fancy 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  313 

every  considerable  town  with  its  university  just  as 
it  now  has  its  high  school,  —  a  university  represent- 
ing the  formal  side  of  the  educational  process  of 
manhood  and  womanhood ;  to  fancy  that  every  one 
could  go  there  and  receive  the  best  instruction  in 
the  best  things,  could  get  just  in  proportion  to 
his  time  and  ability  and  desire.  It  is  thrilling 
to  feel  even  in  imagination  the  warm  community 
of  interest  which  would  spring  out  of  this  inteUec- 
tual  comradeship,  to  see  the  gray-haired  men  and 
elderly  women,  keeping  alive  and  young  the  best 
part  of  human  life,  the  alert  spirit,  and  growing 
old  only  in  the  best  sense,  in  experience  and  in 
wisdom  ;  to  see  the  young  men  and  maidens  doing 
their  part  in  the  family  life,  and  still  getting  the 
best  that  the  higher  education  can  give.  It  is  a 
pleasant  picture  to  fancy  that  the  daily  life  of  toil 
might  go  on  for  each  one  of  us  touched  always  with 
the  emotion  of  intellectual  wonder  and  the  sense 
of  intellectual  growth.  And  this,  the  open  univer- 
sity would  make  possible. 

The  needs  of  the  simple  life  can  be  satisfied  with 
much  less  than  a  whole  day's  labor  of  productive 
toil,  but  the  leisure  saved  is  valuable  only  as  it  can 
be  put  to  some  noble  use. 

In  all  of  our  schemes  for  ideal  living  we  fail  to 
be  practical,  and  therefore  fail  to  be  moral,  if  we 
forget  that  a  certain  amount  of  genuine  toil  is  both 
necessary  and  desirable.  The  present  hideousness 
of  toil  comes  from  the  fact  that  it  is  misdirected 
and  misdistributed.    We  are  forever  doing  use^ 


314  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

less,  meaningless  things  in  place  of  the  wholesome, 
beautiful  tasks  of  the  simple  life.  We  are  forever 
letting  some  go  scot  free,  to  their  own  hurt,  and 
binding  dreadful  burdens  upon  others,  even  to  the 
losing  of  their  souls.  We  are  drinking  the  same 
poison  which  proved  fatal  to  Greece,  and  to  every 
other  nation  which  once  was  and  now  is  not,  the 
poison  of  an  unconcern  for  our  brother's  good.  It 
is  a  poison  which  will  be  equally  fatal  for  America. 
But  the  cup  grows  less  alluring  as  we  get  the  full 
taste  of  it.  Some  time,  perhaps,  it  will  be  reso- 
lutely dashed  to  the  ground. 

In  looking  at  the  beautiful  life  of  our  present 
universities,  at  its  opportunity,  its  serenity,  its 
spirit  of  high  adventure,  one  cannot  shut  one's 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  for  this  beautiful  life  there  is 
a  price,  the  price  of  less  opportunity,  less  serenity, 
less  high  adventure  on  the  part  of  a  multitude  of 
workers.  It  is  the  excess  of  their  intemperate  toil 
which  makes  the  universities  possible.  We  should 
be  democratizing  the  universities  to  very  little  pur- 
pose if  we  did  not  provide,  as  well  as  the  open 
door,  the  partial  leisure  which  is  to  make  the  open 
door  available  for  working  men  and  women.  We 
can  only  do  this  through  smaller  institutions,  by 
scattering  the  universities  and  taking  them  in  very 
fact  to  the  people  ;  only  by  casting  out  the  useless, 
meaningless  toil,  and  redistributing  the  essential 
remainder,  so  that  into  each  life  there  shall  come 
a  sound  temperance,  the  temperance  of  moderate 
toil  and  sufficient  leisure.     This   saner  life  can 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  315 

alone  bring  the  opportunity  to  use  the  culture  o£ 
the  university. 

In  proposing  that  the  university  shall  be  the 
educational  process  of  all  men  and  women,  I  am 
but  proposing  that  it  shall  fulfill  its  obvious  func- 
tion in  realizing  the  social  purpose ;  for  the  social 
purpose,  I  cannot  too  often  repeat,  is  not  the  pur- 
pose of  the  few,  but  of  the  many,  of  the  whole ; 
and  this  purpose,  under  all  disguises  and  contra- 
dictions and  eclipses,  is  just  this  practical  study 
and  pursuit  of  perfection.  When,  therefore,  the 
university  fails  to  reach  the  masses,  fails  to  touch 
their  lives  with  genuine  culture  and  aspiration,  it 
fails  in  a  very  grave  social  trust :  and  in  the  full 
sweep  of  those  newer  democratic  forces  which  are 
to-day  enkindling  the  hearts  of  men,  the  univer- 
sity of  the  old  regime  will  either  be  renovated  or 
supplanted  —  renovated,  if  it  embrace  the  more 
comprehensive  purpose  ;  supplanted,  if  it  does  not. 

Those  who  are  satisfied  with  the  Grecian  plan 
of  life,  a  seeming  excellence  made  possible  by  a 
foundation  of  human  slavery,  —  and  this,  mark 
you,  is  also  the  American  plan  and  practice,  —  those 
who  are  satisfied  with  this  plan,  and  who  are  willing 
to  believe  that  they  profit  by  it,  cannot  be  expected 
to  enter  with  any  great  degree  of  .enthusiasm  upon 
the  work  of  giving  up  privileges  and  assuming 
common  duties.  Yet  there  is  but  one  privilege  a 
man  may  properly  cling  to.  It  is  the  privilege  of 
doing  a  man's  share  in  the  necessary  toil  of  the 
world,  so  that  other  men  may  have  men's  shares  in 


316  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  leisure  and  delight  of  the  world.  It  is  this 
spirit  which  will  make  the  university  available  as 
the  process  of  the  whole. 

We  have  been  here  considering  a  very  grave  prob- 
lem, and  I  hope  not  altogether  from  the  outside.  It 
is  a  part  of  the  larger  problem  of  our  whole  social 
life.  While  we  have  only  been  able  to  touch  upon 
this  problem,  we  have,  perhaps,  gone  deep  enough 
to  satisfy  the  query  with  which  the  chapter  started 
out,  the  query  as  to  what  type  of  university  will 
satisfy  the  social  purpose.  And  the  answer  is, 
that  it  must  be  a  university  with  wide-open  door ; 
that  it  must  represent  the  educational  process  of 
all  men  and  women ;  that  it  must  offer  initial  as 
well  as  advanced  work  in  all  of  its  departments ; 
that  it  must  appeal  to  the  love  and  interest  of  its 
students;  that  it  must  preserve  the  integrity  of 
their  organisms,  leaving  them  richer,  humanly 
speaking,  at  the  end  of  the  process  than  at  the 
beginning ;  that  it  must  provide  for  the  betterment 
of  all  organisms  which  are  deficient.  To  do  this 
is  to  realize  the  social  purpose ;  to  do  less  than  this 
is  to  fail. 

I  venture  to  outline  so  broad  a  programme  be- 
cause I  believe  it  to  be  a  thoroughly  practical  pro- 
gramme, and  because  I  believe  that  we  shall  have 
no  difficulty  in  carrying  it  out  just  so  soon  as  we 
become  a  genuinely  social  people,  just  so  soon  as 
we  desire  the  complete  human  life  for  the  neigh- 
bor as  well  as  for  the  self.  The  first  step  is  an 
increased  social  sensitiveness,  a  keener  social  con« 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  317 

science.  We  want  a  wholesome  concern  for  the 
salvation  of  the  social  group,  and  we  want  a  very 
watchful  eye  for  the  happiness  of  the  present  life. 
And  it  is  coming,  not  haltingly,  but  with  rapid 
strides,  first,  into  the  hearts  of  men,  as  a  senti- 
ment; then  into  the  minds  of  men,  as  an  idea; 
then  into  the  action  of  men,  as  the  process  of 
democracy.  And  the  social  purpose,  organic  hu- 
man wealth,  will  be  the  purpose  of  the  university 
for  all  men  and  women,  just  as  it  is  the  purpose 
of  the  schools  for  all  boys  and  girls,  and  for  all 
children. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE 

There  comes  a  time  when  the  process  of  formal 
education  ends.  Childhood  has  come  and  gone; 
youth  is  past ;  adult  life  is  reached.  The  lower 
school  and  the  high  school  have  made  their  several ' 
contributions.  Even  the  university  has  given  the 
larger  part  of  its  own  service,  and  must  be  content 
in  the  future  with  occasional  and  casual  ministra- 
tion. But  life  has  not  passed,  the  social  purpose  is 
not  exhausted,  and  just  as  surely  the  educational 
process  may  not  consistently  end.  It  is  only  that 
the  process  has  changed  hands.  It  has  ceased  to 
be  formal  and  official,  ceased  to  be  the  work  of 
any  institution,  however  august,  and  has  become 
the  sole  work  of  the  individual  himself.  When  the 
university  drops  the  work  of  education,  or  even  the 
larger  part  of  it,  and  each  individual  takes  it  up 
for  himself,  the  work  assumes  a  different  character, 
for  it  is  built  out  of  quite  different  material  and 
conditions.  It  becomes  in  a  very  practical  sense 
original  work,  an  adventure  in  the  unknown.  Since 
this  work  has  to  do  with  life  in  its  larger  aspect, 
and  since  life  is  of  all  experiments  the  most  divine, 
we  may  well  call  this  final  process  in  education  the 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  319 

experimental  life,  the  process  of  men  and  women 
in  action. 

When  one  announces  that  quite  the  most  magni- 
ficent thing  about  life  is  life,  one  is  not  toying  with 
the  words.  One  is  simply  announcing  a  vital  truth, 
and  one  that  is  very  obvious.  But  it  is  a  plati- 
tude which  will  well  bear  repeating,  for  rich  and 
poor  alike,  the  world  over,  are  squandering  nothing 
quite  so  remorselessly  as  just  this  most  magnificent 
of  all  their  possessions,  their  life.  The  poor  are 
squandering  it  on  food  and  shelter  and  clothing, 
and  very  wretched  stuff  at  that;  sometimes  they 
are  squandering  it  in  forced  or  self-chosen  idleness. 
The  middle  classes  are  squandering  it  on  a  some- 
what better  grade  of  the  so-called  necessaries,  and 
in  still  larger  measure  they  are  squandering  it  on 
the  hazard  of  wealth.  The  rich  are  squandering  it 
on  the  bolder  hazard  of  greater  wealth,  and  in  pur- 
suit of  impossible  pleasure,  —  pleasure  bought  at 
the  expense  of  another.  But  in  the  midst  of  this 
disorder,  and  enabling  us,  by  the  contrast,  to  recog^ 
nize  it  as  disorder,  one  does  see,  here  and  there,  men 
and  women  spending  life  wisely  and  beautifully, 
living  the  experimental  life,  and  more  thrifty  still, 
one  sees  on  all  sides,  the  children. 

Now  whether  we  squander  life  on  the  trifling 
pursuits  of  the  majority,  or  whether  we  spend  it 
wisely  and  beautifully,  after  the  manner  of  the 
minority,  will  aU  depend  upon  the  ideas  which  we 
bring  to  the  adventure.  The  same  stone  may  be 
fashioned  into  a  temple  of  the  spirit  or  into  a  foi> 


320  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

tress  of  cruelty :  it  depends  upon  the  idea  of  the 
builder.  The  same  metal  may  be  wrought  into 
sword  or  ploughshare:  it  depends  upon  the  idea 
of  the  artificer.  The  same  grain  may  nourish  as 
food  or  deprave  as  drink  :  it  depends  upon  the  idea 
of  the  husbandman.  So  the  same  life  may  be 
squandered  on  that  which  is  not  worth  while,  or 
expended  on  that  which  is  excellent :  it  depends 
upon  the  idea  of  the  man.  The  altogether  sig- 
nificant, compelling,  momentous  thing  is  the  idea. 
This  is  at  once  the  hope  of  all  advance  movements, 
and  their  despair.  It  is  the  hope,  because  the  right 
idea  pierces  all  obstacles,  and  accomplishes  the  im- 
possible, —  the  triumphant  idea  becomes  the  tri- 
umphant fact.  It  is  the  despair,  because  the  trans- 
mutation of  coward  ideas  into  heroic  ideas  is  the 
work  of  years,  of  generations.  In  the  absence  of 
the  right  idea,  the  force  and  material  of  the  uni- 
verse avail  nothing. 

It  has  been  the  custom,  and  continues  to  be  the 
custom,  to  regard  education  as  a  process  which  ends 
for  the  masses  with  the  lower  school ;  for  the  more 
fortunate,  with  the  high  school ;  and  for  the  gifted 
few,  with  the  university.  We  speak  pityingly  of 
the  man  whose  early  education  has  been  neglected, 
but  have  no  pity  for  our  fellows  or  ourself  that 
we  are  neglecting  the  far  greater  opportunity  of  a 
later  and  more  mature  education.  To  have  edu- 
cation cover  the  whole  of  life  for  all  of  us  is  not 
regarded  by  any  great  number  of  people  as  more 
than  a  very  idle  dream.     But  to   advocate  this 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  321 

Hream  as  a  thoroughly  serious  and  practical  plan 
of  life,  a  workable  idea,  is  the  purpose  of  the  pre- 
sent chapter ;  for  such  a  plan  is  only  to  extend  the 
scheme  of  a  rational,  social  education  to  its  logical 
completion.  The  obstacle  to  be  overcome  is  an 
anti-social  idea,  that  poor  idea  which  makes  us  be- 
lieve in  things  rather  than  in  men,  believe  in  indi- 
vidual profit  and  privilege  rather  than  in  the  social 
good  fortune  and  individual  human  wealth.  Such 
a  conf^eption  of  society  is  the  very  opposite  of  that 
which  comes  from  the  application  of  the  philosophic 
idea  to  the  affairs  of  every-day  life,  is  indeed  the 
defeat  of  that  truer  and  more  defensible  social 
purpose.  The  real  goal  is  organic  good  fortune  for 
each  and  all,  and  may  efface  itself  before  no  scheme 
of  material  wealth. 

This  is  the  only  sense  in  which  it  is  possible  for  all 
of  us  to  become  wealthy,  this  wealth  of  individual 
organic  power.  For  the  wealth  of  the  market, 
great  as  it  is,  and  great  as  we  want  it  to  be,  houses 
and  lands  and  goods  and  the  apparatus  of  produc- 
tion and  transportation,  this  immense  and  growing 
wealth  is  still  not  sufficient  to  make  us  all  wealthy 
in  any  individual  way.  And  this  wealth,  even  if 
it  were  enough,  would  quite  lose  its  power  if  by 
any  chance  it  came  to  even  distribution.  For 
whatever  may  be  one's  social  creed,  it  is  impossible 
to  deny  that  the  present  power  of  wealth  depends 
upon  its  inequality,  depends  upon  its  power  to 
command  the  service  of  other  people.  On  the 
one  side,  we  have  the  wealth  of  the  market,  and  oo 


822  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  other  side,  we  have  human  need  or  human 
greed,  usually  human  need.  It  is  poverty  which 
gives  power  to  this  sort  of  wealth,  to  individual 
material  wealth.  It  is  only  difference  of  level  that 
makes  the  wealth  available.  Some  one  else  must 
be  in  want.  The  stream  which  does  not  run  down 
hill  turns  no  mill.  The  magnificence  of  private 
wealth  is  a  magnificence  which  is  only  made  possi- 
ble by  the  drudgery  of  a  multitude  of  weary  work- 
ers, by  their  practical  slavery. 

When  one  criticises  a  tyranny,  one  must  condemn 
both  parties  to  it,  both  the  tyrant  who  tyrannizes 
and  the  masses  who  submit.  When  one  criticises 
a  plutocracy  one  must  be  equally  impartial,  for  a 
plutocracy  is  possible  only  where  both  rich  and  poor 
consent  to  the  idea.  In  America,  the  unsuccessful 
man  cannot  plume  himself  upon  being  more  right- 
eous than  the  successful  one,  for  both  consented  to 
the  idea ;  and  we  did  this,  partly  because  the  opera- 
tion had  never  with  any  very  loud  voice  been  called 
in  question,  and  still  more  perhaps  because  the 
chances  of  gain  were  so  great  and  so  alluring  that 
they  blinded  us  to  the  real  significance  of  what  we 
were  doing.  We  had  a  virgin  continent  to  ex- 
plore, field  and  forest  and  mine  to  be  had  for  the 
taking,  and  we  had,  the  more  the  pity,  the  captive 
black  man  of  Africa  and  the  disinherited  white  man 
of  Europe  to  do  the  work,  and  yield  us  the  profit. 
And  this  work  of  double  exploitation,  the  exploita- 
tion of  a  continent  and  of  a  people,  has  gone  on 
so  unfalteringly  that  now,  instead  of  the  democracy 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  323 

which  we  started  out  to  realize,  we  have  a  country 
with  two  classes  in  it,  those  who  have,  and  those  who 
have  not.  And  we  glory  in  our  work,  in  this  con- 
quest of  a  continent,  and  this  piling  up  of  great 
wealth ;  but  when  the  story  of  the  last  century  comes 
to  be  written  by  a  later  and  more  moral  hand,  it 
will  picture  a  century  of  black  and  white  slavery 
quite  as  genuine  as  the  slavery  of  the  mediaeval 
centuries  which  we  affect  to  discredit. 

And  for  this  state  of  affairs,  shocking  as  it  un- 
doubtedly is,  no  one  class  is  to  blame,  neither  the 
rich  nor  the  poor.  We  started  out  somewhat  even, 
at  least  we  natives.  We  gambled  for  the  most 
part  honestly.  Some  won,  some  lost ;  but  the  sin 
of  winning  was  no  greater  than  the  sin  of  losing. 
The  sin  was  in  the  gambling.  We  are  all  to 
blame,  for  we  all  consented  to  the  idea,  to  this 
insatiable  itching  palm,  to  this  profit-taking  at  a 
human  cost. 

But  now  the  case  has  another  aspect,  and  is 
brought  nearer  home.  The  continent  is  possessed : 
the  European  recruits  have  become  American  citi- 
zens. The  chance  of  fortune  is  so  far  diminished 
that  even  the  chance  of  work  is  guarded :  America, 
a  country  which  started  out  to  be  a  democracy,  the 
refuge  of  all  who  were  sore  oppressed,  has  so  far 
abandoned  her  mission  that  she  accepts  without 
shame  a  policy  of  exclusion.  The  time  has  come 
whep  we  must  either  give  up  our  passion  for  profit, 
or  must  exploit  our  own  fellow-citizens.  The  dread- 
ful  results  of  our  profit-hunger  are  too  manifest  on 


324  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

all  sides,  and  notably  in  our  large  cities,  for  us  to 
be  able  any  longer  to  plead  ignorance. 

It  is  this  older,  profit-tainted  view  of  life  which 
is  responsible  for  the  custom  of  regarding  educa- 
tion as  a  limited  process,  and  speculation  as  really 
the  main  business  of  life.  It  is  a  genuine  gambling 
spirit,  for  it  makes  men  willing  to  stake  every- 
thing —  health,  beauty,  accomplishment,  goodness, 
life  itself  —  on  the  chance  of  a  possession  which, 
when  compared  with  these  superb  things,  is  piti- 
ably, infinitesimally  small.  It  has  made  possible 
such  a  monstrous  expression  as  "  the  almighty  dol- 
lar." It  has  made  possible  many  worse  things. 
So  long  as  such  a  view  prevails,  "business"  will 
stand  as  the  constant  rival  to  education,  and  by 
limiting  the  process  as  far  as  possible,  will  mean 
practically  the  defeat  of  the  social  purpose.  At 
the  present  moment,  it  must  be  confessed  that  this 
business  view  of  life  does  prevail.  Even  boys  in 
good  circumstances,  financially  speaking,  drop  out 
of  the  lower  schools  and  the  high  schools,  go 
stragglingly  to  college,  for  they  have  the  very 
natural  feeling  that  if  profit  is  the  main  business 
of  life,  the  sooner  they  get  about  it  the  better. 
And  then  this  fact  that  wealth  is  wealth,  only 
because  poverty  is  poverty,  makes  wealth  essen- 
tially the  enemy  of  popular  education,  for  poverty 
and  education  never  have  gone  hand  in  hand,  and 
never  can.  The  material  part  of  life  must  be  at- 
tended to  first ;  one  must  have  food  and  shelter  and 
clothing;  and  when  this  problem  presses  heavily, 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  326 

as  it  does  upon  the  great  majority  of  our  people, 
we  can  have  little  hope  of  making  education  co» 
extensive  even  with  youth,  no  hope  whatever  of 
making  it  coextensive  with  life.  And  so  I  must 
regard  the  present  individualistic  administration  of 
our  resources  as  distinctly  anti-social,  since  it  is 
defeating  the  process  of  education,  a  process  whose 
defeat  is  a  crime,  and  so  defeating  that  social  pur- 
pose which  gives  to  this  process  its  high  compulsion. 
It  is  as  an  educator  with  a  turn  for  the  practical  that 
I  want  to  see  such  a  social  administration  of  these 
bountiful  resources  as  will  make  education  general 
and  coextensive  with  life.  This  can  never  be  so 
long  as  we  pull  down  our  neighbors'  stockades  in 
order  to  keep  the  wolf  out  of  our  own  garden.  The 
practical  method  would  be  to  make  common  cause 
against  the  wolf.  The  administration  of  common 
justice  has  been  found  to  be  infinitely  better  than 
the  operation  of  private  revenge. 

In  saying,  then,  that  the  majority  of  our  people 
are  squandering  their  life,  one  does  not  condemn 
them,  for  under  the  present  social  regime  it  is  al- 
most impossible  for  them  to  do  otherwise.  The 
way  out  for  the  masses  of  these  people  cannot  be 
individual ;  it  must  be  social. 

And  yet  we  have  a  small  minority  living  the 
experimental  life  and  carrying  on  the  process  of 
education  to  the  very  end,  and  they  are  doing  it 
necessarily  under  the  present  regime.  It  is  an 
entirely  practical  and  possible  plan  for  some,  and 
it  would  be  possible  for  all  if  the  idea  of  the 


326  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

experimental  life  could  penetrate  the  armor  of  an 
unsocial  and  unfavorable  environment.  One  by 
one,  they  might  escape  into  the  better  kingdom. 
But  that  inaptitude  for  ideas  which  is  engendered 
by  want  and  misery  is  a  prison  which  must  always 
be  reckoned  with.  Those  of  us  who  have  come 
into  a  purer  region  of  thought  through  the  favor- 
ing influence  of  a  more  gracious  environment,  and 
have  attained  something  of  the  rational  life,  must 
not  expect  the  same  high  spirit  on  the  part  of  our 
less  fortunate  brother  and  sister.  If  we  do,  we 
are  hardly  causationists,  hardly  artist-philosophers. 
Ours  is  the  responsibility,  the  high  privilege,  of 
so  acting  upon  the  social  environment  that  better 
thoughts  will  come  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
better  deeds  will  flow  out  of  the  more  liberal,  more 
human  thought.  A  man  constantly  on  the  defen- 
sive, constantly  fighting  cold  and  hunger  and 
nakedness,  is  not  open  to  the  gentler  influence  of 
a  redeeming  idea.  Nor  need  we  be  fearful  of  en- 
feebling our  neighbor,  making  him  less  independ- 
ent, less  manly,  less  capable  of  wholesome  personal 
initiative,  —  which  is  the  stock  argument  of  social 
competition  and  anarchy.  Charity  does  this,  ser- 
vility does  this,  the  habit  of  wage-taking  does  it,  but 
decent,  wholesome  life  conditions,  never.  If  they 
did,  in  what  great  danger  should  we  persons  of  the 
leisure  class  stand,  and  how  eager  we  should  all  be 
to  abandon  the  vantage  ground  of  a  little  property 
and  throw  ourselves  into  those  positions  of  struggle 
vi^ich  we  fancied  to  be  so  admirable  for  the  charao 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  327 

ter  and  well-being  of  our  neighbor  of  the  masses  I 
But  it  seems  that  we  do  not  do  this,  do  not  court 
bad  food  and  impure  air  and  inadequate  clothing 
and  hideous  surroundings  and  exhausting  toil.  We 
know  full  well  that  these  are  not  the  conditions  of 
liberal  thought  and  redeeming  ideas.  We  know 
that  health  comes  only  from  a  wholesome  life. 

Under  our  present  social  conditions,  the  experi- 
mental life  is  possible  for  only  two  classes  of  per- 
sons, both  of  them  privileged  classes,  the  people  of 
superior  endowment,  and  the  people  of  means 
tempered  by  ideas.  The  one  class  has  the  highest 
possible  measure  of  independence ;  the  other  class 
has  a  borrowed  independence  secure  only  so  long 
as  the  ideas  hold  out.  But  before  we  look  into  the 
matter  of  how  these  people  live  the  experimental 
life,  let  us  inquire  what  it  is  to  live  that  life,  since 
we  have  only  said  in  a  broad  way  that  it  is  to 
carry  the  process  of  education  through  the  whole 
of  life. 

The  pursuit  of  perfection  is  the  pursuit  of  that 
which  is  excellent  and  beautiful,  and  this  is  what 
we  mean  by  organic  wealth,  the  sound,  beautiful, 
accomplished  organism,  the  heart  of  brotherhood, 
the  reverent,  cosmic  spirit.  One  on  whom  this 
vision  of  the  perfect  life  has  laid  firm  hold  cannot 
regard  the  quest  as  peculiar  to  any  age  or  time,  or 
place  or  circumstance,  cannot  indeed  regard  it  as 
a  quest  which  will  ever  be  satisfied,  save  as  a  pro- 
gressive realization.  He  must  look  upon  it  as  the 
major  end  of  both  the  individual  and  the  social 


328  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

life.  As  such  it  must  determine  the  disposition  of 
the  days,  what  occupations  are  possible,  and  what 
are  not ;  must  declare  for  or  against  all  contem- 
plated plans,  and  must  be  coextensive  with  every 
bodily  and  intellectual  activity,  every  emotional 
impulse.  The  man  who  undertakes  so  comprehen- 
sive a  quest  as  this  must  be  as  resolute  as  one  of 
Arthur's  own  knights,  and  more  faithful.  The 
practical  carrying  out  of  such  a  plan  of  experi- 
mental living  is  a  concrete  operation  and  may  not 
be  impatient  of  details. 

Perfection  —  using  the  term  always  in  a  relative 
sense  —  is  a  social  as  well  as  an  individual  quality, 
and  is  not  open  to  hermits.  It  is  gained  by  the 
developing  of  one's  own  personal  powers,  and  by 
the  right  ordering  of  one's  relations  with  others. 
It  has  always  this  dual  aspect.  So  the  man,  liv- 
ing the  experimental  life,  will  be  very  jealous  of  his 
person,  of  his  health  and  his  manhood  and  his  or- 
ganic wholeness  and  accomplishment.  The  admi- 
rable purposes  of  the  spirit  require  an  admirable 
tool.  And  so  no  activity  will  be  possible  which 
may  not  be  idealized  and  made  to  minister  to  the 
furtherance  of  the  complete  life.  But  he  will  be 
just  as  jealous  of  his  relations  with  others,  that 
these  relations  shall  be  fine  and  helpful  and  ideal. 
The  magnificent  personality  of  an  experimentalist 
is  magnificent  only  in  action.  It  gets  itself  real- 
ized only  in  the  rendering  of  some  honest  social 
service.  To  live  the  experimental  life  is  then  to 
make  each  year,  each  day,  each  hour  contribute 


I 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  329 

to  the  increase  of  one's  own  personal  power  and 
goodness,  and  to  allow  this  incomparable  purpose 
to  be  interfered  with  by  no  schemes  of  profit,  no 
smaller  and  meaner  ends.  Such  a  life  is  experi- 
mental, because  it  has  but  one  fixed  element  in 
it,  and  that  element  is  its  purpose,  the  quest  of 
culture,  the  study  and  pursuit  of  perfection.  And 
such  a  quest  as  this  demands  the  boldest  kind  of 
experimenting.  It  demands  a  willingness  to  go 
here  and  there,  to  submit  to  this  and  that  influ- 
ence, to  do  one  thing  and  then  another,  to  be  ever 
open  to  the  emerging  requirements  of  the  spirit. 
Literally  it  means  to  take  one's  life  in  one's  hand ; 
to  cultivate  a  certain  detachment ;  to  fight  shy  of 
mechanical  engagements  and  routine  prisons;  to 
avoid  all  avenues  to  the  commonplace,  however 
luxurious  and  inviting,  —  in  a  word,  it  is  to  be  a 
soldier  of  good  fortune. 

It  is  very  easy  to  be  dull.  It  is  very  easy  to 
give  your  second-best,  to  be  less  excellent  than 
you  might  have  been.  It  is  very  easy  to  decline 
a3complishments  which  require  hard  work,  to  de- 
cline a  health  and  beauty  which  ask  the  price  of 
sturdy  living,  to  decline  human  service  which  in- 
^olves  an  overflowing  measure  of  love  and  skill. 
It  is  very  easy  to  call  laziness  patience ;  to  call 
meanness  prudence ;  to  call  cowardice  caution  ;  to 
call  the  commonplace  the  practical,  and  mere  in- 
ertia conservatism. 

Now  this  turn  of  ours  for  taking  the  line  of  least 
..•distance  is  so  deep-set  that  to  shake  one's  self 


330  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

free  of  it  is  a  prodigiously  hard  thing.  The  aveiv 
age  man  finds  the  world  serviceable  to  his  hand. 
He  can  buy  his  clothes  ready-made,  and  his  shirts 
and  his  shoes  ;  even  his  opinions  can  be  got  of  the 
newsboy  for  a  penny.  He  is  patted  on  the  back 
as  modest  and  useful,  and  is  praised  for  being 
content  with  that  situation  in  life  to  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  call  him.  And  he  is  particularly 
patted  and  particularly  praised  by  those  shrewd 
persons  who  find  his  docility  profitable.  And  then 
when  the  chapter  is  finished,  and  this  useful  man 
dies,  he  has  a  little  obituary  notice  in  his  favorite 
newspaper,  telling  how  for  twenty-five  years  he 
was  the  faithful  servant  of  such  and  such  a  cor- 
poration, or  for  eighteen  years  never  took  a  single 
holiday,  or  for  thirty-three  years  was  the  untiring 
member  of  some  giant,  profit-taking  enterprise.  If 
his  profits  were  big  enough,  his  picture  is  added. 
And  this  record  of  omitted  growth  and  wasted 
human  opportunity  is  made  the  subject  of  journal- 
istic eulogy.  Brave  indeed  is  the  young  person 
who  can  be  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere  so  satu- 
rated with  untruth  as  this  and  not  believe  that  the 
path  of  duty  is  to  go  and  do  likewise. 

When  I  say  these  things  to  my  friends,  they  tell 
me  that  I  do  not  sufiiciently  allow  for  the  beauty 
of  faithfulness ;  but  I  have  to  answer  them  as  I 
answer  myself,  that  faithfulness  in  a  bad  cause  is 
not  admirable  ;  that  the  halting,  partial  service  of 
those  who  seek  with  still  half-opened  eyes  to  fol- 
low the  higher  ideal  is  infinitely  the  braver  loyalty. 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  331 

Now  I  am  not  reciting  these  human  calamities 
in  any  spirit  of  more-righteous-than-thou,  for  I 
well  know  that  unless  Heaven  help  me,  and  I  help 
myself,  I  shall  repeat  the  same  calamities  in  my 
own  life,  and  1  know  that  unless  the  same  help 
come  to  you,  you  will  do  the  same.  But  there  do 
come  to  all  of  us  occasional  moments  of  insight, 
when  we  see  that  this  drivel  of  the  children  of  the 
established  order  is  not  the  divine  message  of  the 
great  universe ;  that  this  message,  on  the  contrary, 
is  forever  proclaiming  openness  and  plasticity  and 
generosity  and  fearlessness  and  totality.  It  is  not 
proclaiming  the  modesty  of  high  adventure  un- 
essayed.  It  is  whispering  always,  —  Be  thou  per- 
fect, perfect,  even  as  I  am  perfect,  as  God  is  per- 
fect. To  fulfill  this  high  mission  and  keep  alive 
the  universal  charge  in  one's  own  heart  is  not  to 
follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  however  easy ;  is 
not  to  be  dull,  however  great  the  temptation ;  is 
not  to  be  commonplace  and  commercial  and  sal- 
aried. It  is  to  be  the  fullest  measure  of  a  man 
that  the  bit  of  flesh  and  bone  you  call  your  own 
allows  you  to  be.  And  to  do  this  is  to  keep  one's 
self  free  and  unsold  and  unattached,  to  experi- 
ment  with  life,  and  be  ready  to  brave  the  unknown 
of  a  possible  but  as  yet  unrealized  experience. 
The  commonplace  and  commercial  life  has  at  bot- 
tom the  fear  of  being  unprovided  for.  The  experi- 
mental life  must  "  fear  nothing  but  fear." 

The  point  of  view  is  the  great  thing,  but  the 
popular  point  of  view  has  a  curious  way  of  in^ 


332  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

verting  values.  To  substitute  the  pursuit  of  per- 
sonal  power  and  excellence  for  the  conventional 
pursuit  of  wealth  and  family  and  reputation  is 
commonly  estimated  to  be  on  the  whole  a  rather 
selfish  proceeding,  and  the  experimentalist  must 
be  prepared  in  perfect  serenity  of  spirit  to  meet 
this  inexplicable  charge  not  once  but  many  times, 
to  meet  it  indeed  until  the  splendid  results  which 
flow  out  of  the  simple  living  of  the  better  life  have 
become  too  manifest  to  be  denied.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  this  charge  of  selfishness  will  not  bear 
investigation.  No  amount  of  personal  industry 
will  make  a  man  wealthy.  The  days  are  not  long 
enough  and  human  strength  is  not  great  enough. 
The  only  way  to  become  wealthy  is  to  appropriate 
a  part  of  the  wealth  created  by  other  people,  that 
is,  to  exploit  labor ;  or  to  appropriate  the  wealth 
created  by  Nature,  that  is,  to  exploit  the  national 
resource ;  or,  by  speculation,  to  appropriate  the 
wealth  created  by  the  growth  and  movement  of 
population,  that  is,  to  exploit  society.  And  these 
operations  are  not  the  operations  of  the  unselfish 
spirit.  They  may  hardly  be  offered  as  a  desirable 
substitute  for  the  pursuit  of  that  human  wealth 
which  so  blesses  its  possessor  and  makes  no  other 
man  the  poorer.  And  if  the  operations  themselves 
be  questionable,  surely  no  amount  of  good  purpose 
in  the  subsequent  expenditure  of  the  spoils  can 
redeem  the  operations  and  make  them  admirable. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  pursuit  of  wealth 
cannot  be  a  possible  plan  of  life  for  the  man  whose 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  333 

eyes  are  resolutely  set  upon  the  things  of  excel- 
lence and  beauty,  cannot,  in  short,  be  a  part  of  the 
experimental  life. 

The  upbuilding  of  a  family  must  be  looked 
upon  in  much  the  same  way.  The  ability  to  sup- 
port children,  even  without  exploiting  labor  or 
Nature  or  society  in  their  behalf,  does  not  con- 
stitute the  right  to  have  children,  the  moral,  es- 
thetic right.  Unless  a  man  has  first  gained  per- 
sonal power  and  excellence  himself,  he  cannot 
transmit  these  qualities  to  his  oflFspring,  and  he  is 
ill  performing  the  function  of  race  preservation  if 
he  preserve  that  which  is  not  admirable,  his  own 
weakness  and  half  power  and  lack  of  totality.  The 
pursuit  of  family  is  only  admirable  when  one  has 
first  ordered  one's  own  life  in  the  paths  of  excel- 
lence  and  beauty. 

And  in  this  matter  of  a  reputation,  by  whatever 
series  of  exploits  it  is  won,  it  is  marred  in  the  very 
making  of  it  if  it  be  touched  by  a  trace  of  aelf- 
consciousness.  The  military  leader  charging  for 
the  White  House,  the  actor  with  his  thoughts  be- 
tween the  pit  and  the  gallery,  the  writer  with  his 
eye  on  the  public,  the  painter  working  for  the 
market,  do  not  achieve  the  sort  of  reputation  which 
a  man  in  the  sober  moments  of  life  would  care  to 
have  or  work  for.  It  is  the  sincere,  unregardful 
working  out  of  one's  own  life  purposes,  the  attain- 
ment of  power  and  excellence  for  the  sake  of 
power  and  excellence,  and  not  for  the  sake  of 
applause ;  it  is  this  quiet,  unobtrusive  private  pro- 


834  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

cess  which  has  given  the  world  its  calendar  of  AH 
Saints. 

The  pressure  of  life  is  to  make  us  all  average 
men.  It  is  to  force  us  along  the  line  of  least  re- 
sistance, and  to  land  us  finally  in  the  abyss  of  the 
commonplace,  making  heaven  a  bit  of  distant  blue 
sky  above  us  rather  than  a  garden  of  delight 
round  about  us.  And  this  coward  plan  of  life, 
this  abdication  of  the  best,  is  recommended  to  us 
in  all  seriousness  as  something  quite  dutiful  and 
admirable.  In  reality,  it  is  high  treason  to  the 
human  spirit. 

The  alphabet  is  a  remarkable  set  of  characters. 
It  contains,  in  fact,  the  whole  dictionary.  It  is 
only  that  the  letters  have  not  yet  been  arranged. 
And  the  dictionary  is  a  still  more  remarkable  col- 
lection of  symbols.  It  contains,  as  some  French- 
man has  long  since  observed,  every  good  thing 
that  may  be  said.  It  is  only  that  the  words  have 
not  yet  been  grouped.  And  to-day  is  a  remarkable 
moment  of  time.  In  it  is  every  possibility  of  ex- 
perience. It  is  only  that  the  experience  has  been 
unlived.  But  to  this  larger  experience  and  this 
larger  life,  the  universe  daily  invites  us.  Yet  for 
the  most  part  we  lend  deaf  ears  and  turn  blind 
eyes.  To  lead  the  experimental  life  is  to  accept  this 
superb  invitation  and  to  pass  into  that  region  of 
delight  and  beauty  and  magnificence  which  is  the 
vital  life. 

It  would  be  a  poor  service  to  commend  a  plan 
of  life  which  might  not  be  carried  out,  to  sing  the 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  335 

praises  of  a  paradise  quite  surely  lost.  But  it  is 
not  so  with  this  better  life.  It  is  an  entirely  pos- 
sible plan.  If  one  has  some  means,  tempered  by 
ideas,  and  is  content  with  that  simple  life  which 
gives  the  spirit  its  necessary  breathing  space,  then 
one  has  both  the  time  and  the  impulse  needed  for 
the  experimental  life.  If  one  has  superior  endow- 
ment, the  impulse  is  assured,  and  the  committee  on 
ways  and  means,  a  committee  which  has  permanent 
headquarters  in  every  brain,  however  idealistic, 
has,  on  the  whole,  an  easy  problem  ahead  of  it. 
And  this  superiority  need  not  be  overwhelming, 
need  not  amount  to  genius,  not  even  to  talent, 
need  not,  in  fact,  exceed  the  slender  possession  of 
the  majority  of  the  middle  classes.  Good  health, 
average  natural  ability,  the  elements  of  a  liberal 
education,  these  represent,  it  seems  to  me,  what 
may  be  caUed  the  material  part  of  the  equipment. 
The  spiritual  equipment  is  equally  simple,  but  some- 
what more  rare.  It  is  an  unfaltering  determina- 
tion to  do  nothing  which  is  not  essentially  up- 
lifting to  the  self,  and  at  the  same  time  a  genuine 
social  service. 

In  reality,  these  spiritual  requirements  are  one. 
It  is  impossible  to  lift  one's  self  at  the  expense 
of  others.  It  is  equally  impossible  to  serve  others 
without  at  the  same  time  serving  one's  self.  Any 
growth  in  the  man  which  does  not  serve  the  com- 
munity must  be  counted  a  false  growth,  and  any 
service  to  the  community  which  sacrifices  the  man 
must  be  counted  a  false  service.     In  spite  of  seem, 


836  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

ing  exceptions  this  solidarity  of  interest  is  literally 
true,  and  one  sees  how  true  it  is  if  one  but  remem- 
bers that  the  universe  is  at  bottom  a  moral  uni- 
verse, and  that  man  is  essentially  a  social  being. 
The  drama  of  human  life  is  not  a  game  of  human 
solitaire.  It  is  a  drama  made  possible  only  by  the 
human,  social  relation  of  the  players.  When  one 
starts  out  on  the  quest  of  human  perfection,  one 
can  make  no  progress  whatever  save  through  these 
relations  and  through  this  human  interplay.  Even 
the  quest  of  bodily  excellence,  of  strength  and 
beauty  and  accomplishment,  apparently  the  most 
private  aspect  of  culture,  has  this  equal  gift  for 
others.  The  strength  must  show  itself,  the  beauty 
must  be  seen,  the  accomplishment  must  express 
itself  in  action.  And  when  we  come  to  the  heart 
of  this  organic  excellence,  to  its  reverence  and  its 
goodness,  we  come  to  qualities  which  might,  it  is 
true,  express  themselves  in  the  desert  in  bodily 
purity  and  self-respect,  in  communion  with  God, 
but  which  require  for  their  full  expression  the 
manifold  relations  of  social  life.  The  most  com- 
plete and  perfect  form  of  selfishness  is  the  most 
complete  and  perfect  form  of  altruism. 

We  sum  up,  then,  the  spiritual  requirement  of 
the  experimental  life  in  no  theoretic  way  when  we 
say  that  it  is  an  unfaltering  impulse  towards  the 
unfolding  and  perfecting  of  one's  own  spirit,  the 
unfaltering  practical  impulse  which  will  not  be 
denied,  or  turned  aside,  or  quenched. 

And  the  realization  of  the  experimental  life  is 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  337 

the  giving  free  play  to  this  impulse  in  every  single 
issue  of  the  daily  life.  We  should  fare  but  ill  in 
this  interminable  quest  if  we  had  to  be  forever 
conscious  of  it,  for  that  would  make  us  far  from 
simple-minded,  and  anything  but  companionable. 
Happily  we  are  under  no  such  compulsion.  The 
very  striving  may  be  made  as  habitual  as  courtesy, 
or  standing  up  straight,  or  any  other  of  the  instincts 
of  the  well-bred  life.  The  desire  for  the  best  may 
pass  into  one's  general  attitude  towards  life  and  be 
its  determining  force. 

I  do  not  forget  that  a  man  must  live,  and  that 
the  material  basis  of  life  costs  money.  If  one  ia 
without  means,  without  tools  or  land  or  house,  one 
has  no  choice ;  one  must  sell  one's  time  for  the 
moment  and  serve  for  hire.  There  is  a  choice, 
however,  in  the  work  itself,  —  work  that  a  man  may 
do  and  still  keep  his  manhood,  work  that  is  full  of 
significance  and  meaning  and  beauty,  and  work 
that  a  man  may  not  do  and  keep  himself  a  man, 
the  work  that  is  meaningless  and  unworthy  and 
dishonest.  And  I  am  told  by  those  who  are  trying 
to  lead  the  beautifid  life  and  are  finding  it  hard, 
that  it  is  the  latter  sort  of  work  which  most  com- 
monly offers.  Meanwhile  the  landlord  and  the 
provision  dealer  and  the  tailor  are  importunate: 
there  is  sore  need  of  money.  It  would  be  easy  to 
suffer  want  if  it  touched  only  one's  self,  but  when 
it  bears  heavily  upon  delicately  reared  women  and 
little  children,  upon  the  family  for  whom  one  is 
bound  to  provide,  then  the  want  is  very  bitter. 


338  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

The  temptation  to  accept  any  sort  of  work  which 
yields  the  much-needed  money  is  a  sore  temptation, 
and  one  may  well  pray  not  to  be  led  into  it.  Even  if 
one  escape  this  shipwreck,  and  secure  work  which 
is  morally  clean,  the  deeper  morality  of  whether  it 
is  the  work  most  suitable  to  one's  own  human 
needs,  and  of  how  long  one  may  properly  continue 
to  do  this  particular  kind  of  work,  this  deeper 
morality  remains  to  be  satisfied.  If  the  work  is 
dull  and  stupefying,  if  it  fail  to  offer  a  chance  for 
increased  development  and  power,  then  however 
great  the  wage,  it  is  immoral  work,  and  one  is 
bound  by  the  requirements  of  the  experimental 
life  to  give  it  up,  for  such  work  as  this  is  not  lead- 
ing one  to  the  point  one  has  determined  upon.  If 
a  work  has  nothing  to  recommend  it  but  its  wage, 
it  stands  quite  condemned. 

When  new  work  offers,  and  one  submits  it  to 
this  human  test,  and  asks  with  careful  scrutiny  as 
to  whether  the  work  ministers  to  the  needs  of  the 
worker,  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  properly  esti- 
mate it ;  but  the  task  is  far  more  subtle  when  a  work 
already  entered  upon,  a  work  which  did  at  one  time 
clearly  serve  the  purposes  of  development,  gradu- 
ally ceases  to  render  this  service.  It  is  so  very 
easy  to  go  on,  for  in  the  most  alert  of  us  there  is  a 
tremendous  amount  of  inertia.  The  remembrance 
of  the  old  enthusiasm  remains.  It  is  difficult,  too, 
to  seek  new  work  and  to  strike  out  on  untried  paths, 
and  this  is  particularly  true  if  the  salary  meanwhile 
has  been  growing  larger  and  one's  expenditures  have 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  339 

been  keeping  pace  with  it.  One  tells  one's  self 
that  one  is  very  useful,  and  that  no  other  man  can 
do  the  work  quite  so  well.  One's  friends,  perhaps 
indeed  one's  family  and  one's  employers,  say  the 
same  thing.  The  pressure  is  all  for  keeping  the  man 
right  there.  You  see  how  completely  the  point  of 
view  has  changed  and  swung  around  from  the  hu- 
man requirement  to  the  thought  of  the  work.  And 
do  you  know  what  happens  ?  In  the  majority  of 
cases  the  pressure  prevails.  The  man  stays  and  stays 
and  stays,  holds  on  to  his  position  as  if  it  were  the 
great  thing  in  life ;  becomes  each  year  more  and 
more  of  a  machine,  and  less  and  less  interesting  as  a 
man.  He  bears  with  fortitude  the  loss  of  his  soul, 
and  shows  the  white  feather  whenever  his  position 
is  thought  to  be  in  danger.  It  is  as  if  a  child  at 
school  who  manifested  some  aptitude  for  long  divi- 
sion were  kept  forever  at  that,  instead  of  passing 
on  to  new  and  helpful  work  in  geometry  and  cal- 
culus ;  kept  forever  doing  sums  in  long  division, 
until  at  last  he  was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  a  slowly 
finished  quotient. 

This  mechanicalizing  of  life,  this  making  of  it 
something  quite  automatic  and  insensible,  is  a  veri- 
table tragedy,  for  it  means  quite  surely  the  death 
of  the  spirit.  One  need  not  go  far  afield  for  illus- 
trations. How  many  men  and  women  in  your  own 
limited  circle  of  acquaintance  have  been  turned 
into  human  failures  by  the  bribe  of  a  too  large 
salary.  They  have  been  unwilling  to  let  go  :  they 
have  been   prudential  and  cowardly :  in  the  end 


340  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

they  have  lost  their  life.  To  lead  the  experimental 
life  is  to  put  the  human  gain  first,  and  always  first, 
to  value  the  work,  the  position,  only  so  long  as  the 
human  reaction  is  helpful  and  desirable.  It  is  to 
pass  from  post  to  post ;  from  place  to  place,  if  need 
be ;  from  vocation  to  vocation,  and  to  land  as  soon 
as  possible  in  the  best  of  all  positions,  the  position 
of  the  independent  worker,  where  one  is  no  longer 
hired  and  salaried,  but  is  the  master  of  one's  own 
time  and  energy  and  spirit.  It  is  only  as  true  men 
and  women,  living  the  free  and  independent  life  of 
the  unhired  and  unsold,  of  the  people  who  have  at 
least  the  good  fortune  of  seZ/*-possession,  that  we 
can  come  into  the  largest  good  for  ourselves  and 
can  render  the  most  genuine  social  service. 

Ours  is  an  age  of  gigantic  achievement  along 
material  lines,  but  it  is  not  yet  an  age  of  any  great 
independence  of  thought.  It  is  an  age  of  stock 
opinion  and  concealed  opinion,  of  ill-disguised  ser- 
vility. The  majority  of  our  people  are  hired  ;  the 
rest  give  hire.  Between  them  stands  this  wall,  a 
very  real  wall,  keeping  them  from  meeting  like 
true  men  and  women  in  all  frankness  and  sincerity. 
One  hears  it  asked,  —  Shall  a  man  quarrel  with  his 
bread-and-butter?  But  it  is  not  explained  how  it 
came  about  that  a  man's  bread-and-butter  should 
be  in  the  keeping  of  another.  And  I  venture  to 
afiBrm,  after  regarding  at  some  length  the  free  lance 
and  the  salaried  man,  that  the  effect  of  taking  wage 
upon  the  majority  of  people  is  simply  disastrous, 
spiritually  disastrous.     Life  is  altogether  too  pre- 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  341 

clous  a  thing  to  sell  it  to  another  at  any  price 
whatever,  and  I  count  it  a  national  misfortune  and 
a  national  weakness  that  in  the  great  democracy 
which  we  tried  to  set  up  and  failed  there  should 
be  so  few  men  who  are  masters  of  themselves,  and 
worthy  to  uphold  so  great  a  political  idea. 

It  is  then  a  first  requisite  of  the  experimental 
life  that  one  shall  as  soon  as  possible  decline  out- 
right to  be  hired,  however  insinuating  the  wage,  and 
shall  declare  once  for  all  for  the  life  of  self-pos- 
session and  self-mastery.  And  it  is  not  so  difficult 
to  do  this  as  one  might  at  first  imagine.  The  real 
issue  is  in  the  idea.  The  men  who  vmnt  to  be  free, 
can  be  free.  Once  a  little  ahead,  and  the  man  who 
has  the  good  health,  average  natural  ability,  and 
the  elements  of  a  liberal  education  essential  to  an 
experimentalist,  can  make  an  independent  liveli- 
hood in  many  acceptable  ways.  If  he  have  a  turn 
for  fij:st-hand,  primitive  methods,  he  can  go  directly 
to  the  soil ;  as  farmer,  fruit-raiser,  flower-grower,  as 
shepherd,  woodman,  miner,  he  can  make  a  living 
and  stiU  be  a  man  ;  and  if  his  undertaking  require 
more  than  individual  power,  as  modern  industrial 
undertakings  commonly  do,  he  can  through  cooper- 
ation utilize  this  corporate  power  without  paying 
the  price  of  his  own  freedom.  In  England,  at  the 
present  time,  fully  one  seventh  of  all  the  people 
are  directly  interested  in  some  cooperative  enter- 
prise. 

If  our  experimentalist  prefer  handicraft,  he  has 
a  world  of  possible   independent  activity  opening 


342  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

before  him.  If  he  have  a  turn  for  the  arts  or  for 
professional  service,  he  can  as  artist,  architect,  sur- 
veyor, engineer,  make  an  independent  living.  In 
purely  intellectual  fields  he  may  be  a  teacher  or  a 
writer,  and  in  certain  churches  he  may  still  be  a 
clergyman.  In  fact,  the  only  activities  denied  to 
those  who  decline  to  be  hired  are  the  dull  and 
uninteresting  activities  which  require  machines  in 
place  of  men.  My  point  is  that  any  one,  man  or 
woman,  with  the  modest  equipment  of  an  experi- 
mentalist, and  a  little  bit  ahead,  can  always  go  to 
work  at  something  which  will  contribute  at  once  to 
the  individual  and  the  public  good.  It  is  by  such 
independence  as  this  that  persons  of  superior  en- 
dowment rob  material  wealth  of  its  power.  Silently 
and  with  superb  disdain,  they  are  the  constant  and 
successful  rivals  of  this  wealth.  For  wealth,  be  it 
remembered,  is  quite  an  inert  and  powerless  thing 
by  itself.  It  has  power  only  as  it  has  power  to 
command  the  service  of  others.  And  just  as  soon 
as  superior  people  decline  to  render  this  service  for 
hire,  just  so  soon  as  they  decide  to  be  their  own 
masters,  wealth  will  lose  its  tremendous  power,  and 
the  experimental  life  will  be  increasingly  open  to 
all  men.  And  I  find  myself  going  back  always  to 
that  older  and  uneconomic  view  of  life  that  the 
best  human  service  is  too  august  a  thing  to  be  paid 
for  in  the  lower  coin  of  the  market.  It  must  be 
accepted,  this  august  human  service,  in  the  same 
way  that  we  accept  the  bounty  of  nature,  as  a  gra- 
cious gift. 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  343 

It  is  true  that  there  come  times  when  the  bread- 
and-butter  problem  presses,  and  on  the  idealist,  on 
the  believer  in  unit  man,  quite  as  surely  as  on 
other  persons.  But  the  problem  is  already  half 
met  when  one  elects  the  life  of  simplicity,  of  plain 
food  and  modest  shelter  and  serviceable  dress  and 
sane  amusement.  And  the  other  half  is  much  less 
difficult  than  we  are  prone  to  believe  it.  The  diffi- 
cult thing  is  to  make  the  start,  to  burn  one's  ships, 
and  declare  once  for  all  for  the  free  life.  But  when 
the  start  is  made,  when  one  resolutely  declines  all 
occupations  not  ennobling  and  human,  when  one 
devotes  one's  self  absolutely  to  the  self-chosen  task, 
there  will  be  no  lack  of  bread ;  for  work  done  in 
this  spirit  has  a  quality  and  distinction  to  it  which 
even  the  world  of  profit  and  speculation  recognizes 
and  values.  No  one  in  health,  living  soundly  and 
truly,  need  fear  the  baying  of  the  wolf  at  his  own 
door.  There  are  multitudes  who  will  tell  you  that 
these  schemes  for  ideal  living  are  not  practical,  but 
they  have  no  right  to  speak,  these  people  who  have 
never  tried  them.  Surely  the  men  and  women  who 
have  essayed  the  ideal  life  and  who  have  succeeded, 
are  the  better  guides.  And  they  unite  in  affirming, 
as  an  experimental  result,  that  the  noblest  philoso- 
phy which  can  be  entertained  in  the  heart  can  like- 
wise be  translated  literally  into  the  daily  life. 

The  secret  of  the  experimental  life  is  this  perfect 
freedom,  this  openness  of  mind,  this  unfaltering 
progress.  It  is  the  extension  of  the  educational 
spirit  into  the  whole  of  life.     In  education  we  do  a 


344  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

thing  only  until  we  know  how  to  do  it.  Then  we 
pass  on  to  some  new  task.  When  we  have  read 
Caesar,  we  turn  to  Virgil ;  when  we  have  mastered 
geometry,  we  pass  on  to  trigonometry;  when  we 
have  analyzed  some  simple  chemical,  we  throw  it 
away  and  essay  something  more  difficult ;  when  we 
have  done  the  easier  work  in  wood,  we  make  a  box. 
And  if  we  failed  to  do  this,  failed  to  pass  on  con- 
stantly from  the  five-fingered  exercises  to  the  sona- 
tas, from  the  multiplication  table  to  the  calculus, 
we  should  be  doing  so  stupid  a  thing  that  the 
schools  would  be  absolutely  doomed,  and  formal 
education  would  altogether  disappear  from  off  the 
face  of  the  earth.  The  same  spirit  may  well  be 
imported  into  that  later  and  unofficial  process  of 
education,  the  daily  life  of  the  adult  world.  It  is 
a  stupid  thing  to  go  on  all  your  life  making  nails 
or  pins  or  buttons  or  shoes ;  to  go  on  growing  the 
same-sized  potatoes  ;  even  to  go  on  painting  Madon- 
nas, perhaps  making  them,  like  Perugino,  some- 
what less  lovely  at  the  end  than  in  the  beginning. 
It  is  a  stupid  thing  to  go  on  doing  anything  after 
the  inspiration  and  joy  and  human  profit  have  quite 
gone  out  of  the  doing.  Life  is  simply  what  we 
get  out  of  it,  and  it  is  a  great  pity  to  cheapen  so 
magnificent  a  gift. 

The  one  bright  spot  in  our  commercialism  is  that 
its  enterprises  are  often  undertaken  in  the  hope  that 
their  success  will  enable  us  to  give  our  children  all 
educational  advantages.  "We  want  them  to  have  a 
succession  of  masters ;  to  be  taught  this  fact  and 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  345 

that  accomplishment ;  to  go  to  college  ;  to  travel, 
it  may  be,  in  Europe  ;  to  spend  the  winter  in  the 
city,  the  summer  in  the  country  ;  to  taste  life  in  all 
its  fullness  and  variety.  It  may  be  that  all  this 
activity  is  not  quite  wise  for  people  still  so  young, 
but  it  has  at  bottom  a  wise  and  helpful  thought, 
the  enrichment  of  life.  Why  should  this  process 
stop  when  the  children  come  to  be  men  and  women, 
and  could  so  much  better  respond  to  its  advan- 
tages? Why  should  this  same  solicitous  thought 
not  be  imported  into  our  own  more  mature  plan  of 
life  ?  The  world  is  so  irrepressible  a  teacher.  Her 
lessons  are  so  vastly  interesting.  Her  beauty  is  so 
superb  and  penetrating.  The  mere  panorama  of 
the  world-life,  the  sweep  of  its  processes,  the  untir- 
ing cycle  of  its  activities,  contain  at  first  hand  and 
in  themselves  all  the  elements  of  art  and  science. 
To  be  an  experimentalist  is  to  yield  one's  self  un- 
reservedly to  this  comprehensive  world  teaching, 
to  go  here  and  there,  to  do  this  and  that,  to  see  one 
thing  and  another,  to  accept  the  world  as  a  giant 
possibility  and  to  use  it  to  the  full.  It  is  to  go  to 
school  all  one's  life  to  a  perfect  schoolmistress, — 
to  the  universe.  To  do  otherwise  is  an  ungracious, 
irreligious  act.  It  is  to  decline  life,  and  in  its  stead 
to  accept  a  clerkship. 

In  choosing  such  a  rotation  of  occupation,  one 
need  run  no  risk  of  becoming  the  proverbial  Jack- 
of-all-trades.  The  great  people  of  the  world  have 
had  this  large  versatility.  You  recall  the  tremen- 
dous sweep  of  Caesar's  activities.    You  see  Michel- 


346  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

angelo  painting  Madonnas  and  building  bridges, 
frescoing  ceilings  and  shaping  David.  You  pic- 
ture Leonardo  leading  all  Florence  spellbound  by 
the  charm  of  his  many-sided  genius.  In  Goethe, 
you  have  the  poet,  philosopher,  statesman,  scientist, 
artist,  man  of  letters.  In  Shakespeare  you  have 
an  epitome  of  the  world.  In  my  own  fellow-towns- 
man, Franklin,  you  have  a  man  distinguished,  if 
I  have  counted  rightly,  in  at  least  eleven  different 
directions.  If  this  versatility  were  simply  the  pro- 
duct of  genius,  it  could  hardly  be  used,  even  by 
way  of  suggestion,  in  shaping  the  life  plans  of 
average  men ;  but  it  is  rather  the  condition  of 
genius.  The  biography  of  achievement  is  the  bio- 
graphy of  men  alive  on  many  sides  of  their  nature, 
of  men  taking  active  part  in  the  drama  of  the 
world.  It  is  easy  to  point  to  the  ne'er-do-weels  who 
have  turned  their  hands  to  many  things,  but  the  list 
is  more  than  matched  by  the  people  who  do  only 
one  thing  and  still  do  it  very  badly.  In  both  cases 
it  depends  upon  the  motive.  If  the  will  be  weak,  if 
the  inner  motive  be  insincere,  all  plans  of  life  yield 
poor  results.  It  is  quite  possible  that  industrially 
speaking  you  can  get  more  out  of  a  body  of  spe- 
cialized, automatic  workers  not  disquieted  by  ideas 
above  the  dull  and  sordid  occupations  of  the  mo- 
ment. A  nation  of  factory  hands  will  doubtless 
produce  more  commodities  than  a  nation  of  think- 
ers ;  and  to  read  many  of  our  writers  on  economics, 
and  to  follow  their  impassioned  utterances  on  the 
benefits  of  the  division  of  labor,  one  might  think 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  347 

that  this  was  the  great  social  desideratum.  But 
the  question  is  as  to  whether  we  care  more  for 
commodities  or  for  developed,  accomplished  human 
beings.  The  praise  of  special  toil,  of  life  measured 
in  terras  of  salable  products,  comes,  I  notice,  from 
the  men  who  gather  a  profit  from  the  output,  and  is 
echoed  by  those  who  by  reason  of  the  excessive  toil 
and  narrow  interests  involved  in  such  a  life  are 
quite  incapacitated  for  sound  thought.  But  such 
is  not  the  word  of  Jesus  or  of  those  other  social 
teachers  who  speak  of  the  beautiful  life.  This 
message  has  always  the  same  refrain,  the  putting 
of  the  life  ahead  of  meat,  the  body  ahead  of  rai- 
ment, the  recommending  as  the  major  concern  of 
life  that  first  seeking  of  the  kingdom.  This  mes- 
sage of  religion  is  reiterated  by  philosophy ;  for 
religion  and  philosophy  are  at  heart  one  and  the 
same  thing,  and  when  translated  into  the  terms  of 
daily  life  give  us  that  social  purpose  whose  realiza- 
tion we  have  been  endeavoring  to  further  in  work- 
ing out  a  consistent  and  adequate  educational  pro- 
cess. This  process  would  be  singularly  ineffective 
if,  after  ministering  to  childhood  and  youth,  to  early 
manhood  and  womanhood,  it  should  suddenly  cease, 
and  should  allow  the  social  purpose  to  give  way  be- 
fore the  doctrine  of  the  market.  It  seems  to  me, 
then,  that  the  experimental  life  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
taken  up  or  laid  down  as  you  will,  casually  and  capri- 
ciously. It  seems  to  me  to  have  the  same  impera- 
tiveness for  later  life  that  the  more  formal  processes 
of  education  have  for  earlier  life,  and  as  the  joint 


348  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

programme  of  religion. and  philosophy  and  science 
to  be  altogether  unescapable,  unless  religion  and 
philosophy  and  science  are  likewise  repudiated  as 
guides  to  the  practical  conduct  of  life  and  quite 
relegated  to  the  garret  of  doubtful  hypothesis  and 
fetish.  There  are  minds  quite  inhospitable  to  phi- 
losophy and  science,  but  which  yet  hold  quite  stub- 
bornly to  what  they  conceive  to  be  religion.  There 
are  minds  to  whom  philosophy  is  everything.  There 
are  minds  quite  ready  to  part  company  with  religion 
and  philosophy  in  order  to  follow  what  they  regard 
as  the  surer  light  of  science.  But  there  are  few 
minds,  if  any,  so  completely  agnostic  as  to  deny  all 
three  aspects  of  what  men  hold  to  be  the  truth.  I 
have  been  trying  to  show  that  religion,  by  teach- 
ing the  contemporary  inner  process  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  ;  that  philosophy,  by  teaching  the  present 
unfolding  and  perfecting  of  the  human  spirit ;  and 
that  science,  by  teaching  the  continuous,  esthetic 
nature  of  the  world-process,  —  are  in  reality  teach- 
ing one  and  the  same  thing.  It  represents  the  so- 
cial purpose,  and  its  programme  is  the  programme 
of  the  social  purpose,  —  the  immediate,  life-long, 
eternal  quest  of  human  wealth  and  power,  the  quest 
of  strength  and  beauty  and  accomplishment  and 
goodness. 

The  end  of  life  is  human  discipline,  is  not  the 
getting  of  property,  not  even  the  getting  of  know- 
ledge, but  is  the  getting  of  character  and  accom- 
plishment, a  human  acquisitiveness.  This  is  an  old 
message,  but  it  is  increasingly  imperative.    It  is 


THE  EXPERIMENTAL  LIFE  849 

first  of  all  to  he,  and  then  to  know  and  to  do,  and 
only  incidentally  to  have.  This  is  the  complete 
programme  of  the  experimental  life.  As  a  plan 
of  life,  it  is  simply  the  extension  of  education ;  and 
the  extension  of  education,  the  making  of  education 
a  life-process  instead  of  a  school-process,  is  in  fact 
nothing  less  splendid  than  the  practical  carrying 
out  of  the  quest  of  human  perfection. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PUEPOSE 

There  is  no  sentiment,  however  catholic  and 
august,  which  is  not  the  private  possession  of  an 
individual  human  heart.  This  measures  the  di- 
mensions of  it,  and  establishes  at  once  both  its 
limitation  and  its  reality.  It  is  difficult  not  to 
personify  our  sentiments,  and  particularly  those 
which  have  to  do  with  anything  so  large  as  the 
social  group  ;  to  personify  them  so  completely  that 
we  come  to  speak  of  them  and  think  of  them  as 
something  quite  outside  of  ourselves  and  very 
much  greater  and  more  commanding.  It  is,  of 
course,  necessary  to  have  some  handle  by  which  to 
manage  these  apparitions,  a  need  which  is  com- 
monly supplied  by  means  of  some  well-worn  phrase. 
The  Love  of  Country  goes  stalking  about  the 
land  like  a  giant  recruiting  officer.  The  Balance 
of  Trade  —  when  in  our  favor  —  settles  brood- 
ingly  on  our  hearthstone  with  almost  the  con- 
solatory power  of  religion.  The  Good  of  Hu- 
manity^ like  a  benign  shepherd,  drives  us  into 
curious  pastures  and  sets  us  to  nibbling  at  strange 
herbage.  Good  Times  move  along  with  the  ex- 
hilaration of  a  case  of  champagne.     I  cannot  but 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    361 

think  that  we  are  more  frequently  the  victims  than 
the  beneficiaries  of  this  phrase-making,  personify- 
ing habit.  The  good  phrases  become  guardian 
spirits  on  whom  we  throw  entirely  too  much  of  our 
own  proper  work.  The  bad  phrases  become  devils 
at  whose  door  we  lay  misfortunes,  the  cause  of 
which  belongs  in  reality  much  nearer  home.  In 
either  case  we  become  so  much  the  less  causa- 
tionists,  so  much  the  less  earnest  livers  of  the 
moral  life. 

Unconsciously,  and  almost  unavoidably,  I  have 
been  speaking  of  the  social  purpose  in  the  fore- 
going chapters  in  quite  this  personifying  way, 
much  as  if  the  social  purpose  were  a  modem  Ga- 
briel, whose  trumpet  blasts,  now  reaching  only 
those  of  sensitive  social  ear,  would  in  time  rouse 
the  whole  world  to  its  too-long  delayed  duty.  One 
pictures  the  social  purpose  as  a  well-mannered 
young  person  in  the  traditional  draperies,  hovering 
over  a  commercial  world,  and  vainly  trying  to  in- 
duce a  better  practice.  Such  a  conception,  which, 
I  confess,  does  grow  out  of  our  e very-day  mode  of 
speech,  seems  to  me  so  altogether  unhelpful  and  un- 
inspiring that  I  have  thought  it  wise  to  devote  this 
final  chapter  to  a  very  practical  attempt  to  bring 
the  social  purpose  back  from  the  empyrean  into 
its  proper  home  in  the  hearts  of  men.  This  reality 
of  the  social  purpose  as  a  purely  human,  individ- 
ual possession  becomes  the  more  manifest  when 
one  begins  to  make  inquiry  as  to  the  agents  of  the 
social  purpose. 


8B2  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

It  is  easy  in  a  large  way  to  make  answer  that 
as  the  social  purpose  concerns  all  persons,  so  all 
persons  are  the  accredited  agents  of  the  social  pur- 
pose. Stated  in  this  bald  way,  what  has  just  been 
said  sounds  very  like  a  platitude. 

"  K  every  one  would  see  to  his  own  reformation, 
How  very  easily  we  could  reform  the  nation." 

So  long  as  the  educated  classes  believe  that  the 
present  unideal  state  of  affairs  is  due  entirely  to 
the  ignorance  and  brutality  of  the  masses,  and  rest 
there ;  so  long  as  the  masses  attribute  their  hard- 
ships solely  to  the  pressure  of  the  moneyed  classes, 
and  rest  there ;  so  long  as  the  middle,  bourgeois 
class  truckles  to  the  aristocrats  or  masses,  accord- 
ing as  they  prove  the  better  customers,  and  rest 
there,  —  the  greater  and  more  social  commonwealth 
will  emerge  but  slowly.  No  appeal  to  the  supposed 
virtues  of  that  class  to  which  one  happens  to  be- 
long helps  matters  along  very  greatly,  and  denun- 
ciations of  an  alien  class  are  equally  ineffective. 
No  class  appeal  is  a  social  act,  however  flattering 
its  phraseology.  The  hope  of  the  world  does  not 
lie  with  the  proletariat,  fond  as  their  leaders  are  of 
telling  them  that  it  does;  for  the  world  of  their 
creation  would  be  a  very  dull,  hard-fisted,  stupid 
place.  Nor  does  it  rest  with  our  smug  traders, 
with  their  passion  for  shop-keeping  and  the  com- 
monplace ;  for,  as  a  class,  they  have  neither  the 
muscle  for  working  nor  the  disinterestedness  for 
seeing.  Neither  can  I  feel  that  this  great  hope  is 
the  sole  possession  of  even  our  educated,  aristo* 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    363 

cratic  classes,  the  most  promising  of  the  three ;  for 
in  this  gentler  world  it  is  too  much  forgotten  that 
a  certain  amount  of  homely  toil  is  a  necessary  con- 
dition of  life ;  the  unchastened  aristocratic  plan 
would  leave  the  social  underpinning  too  insecure 
for  the  social  superstructure.  The  problem  of  the 
social  state  is  too  large  for  any  one  class  to  solve. 
The  only  way  out  is  for  us  to  make  common  cause, 
and  in  the  substantial  solution  which  we  might  thus 
achieve,  to  pass  out  once  for  all  from  the  narrow- 
ness and  provinciality  of  class  cleavage  into  the 
freedom  and  opportunity  of  brotherhood. 

But  we  can  only  reach  this  richer  and  more  beau- 
tiful life  of  cooperation  and  brotherhood  through 
the  deepening  and  broadening  of  our  own  social 
instincts.  This  better  life  is  the  expression  of  a 
better  thought.  The  sentiment  must  go  before  the 
action.  And  since  both  sentiment  and  action  are 
distinctly  individual  possessions,  it  is  in  the  human 
heart  and  in  the  human  body  that  society  must  be 
redeemed.  Each  man,  each  woman,  each  child,  is 
the  agent  of  the  social  purpose.  The  work  of  so- 
cial realization  must  be  carried  out  by  a  twofold 
process,  by  the  socializing  and  humanizing  and  per- 
fecting of  one's  own  individual  life,  —  the  brave 
living  of  the  experimental  life,  —  and  by  an  untir- 
ing effort  to  foster  the  social  instinct  in  others,  — 
in  one's  relatives,  one's  friends,  one's  acquaintances, 
one's  home  community,  one's  country. 

It  is  idle  illusion  to  believe  that  this  social  in- 
stinct hangs  literally  in  the  air,  ready  to  precipi* 


864  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

tate  in  refreshing  showers  on  the  parched  earth  of 
human  greed.  Nothing  of  the  sort  happens.  Pub- 
lic opinion  is  the  sum  of  strictly  private  opinion. 
The  Zeitgeist  is  not  an  extra-human  personality, 
a  Dantesque  presence  which  divides  the  ether  with 
that  well-mannered  young  person  who  so  charm- 
ingly personifies  the  social  purpose.  It  is  true 
that  we  have  the  curious  phenomenon  of  mob- 
action,  but  the  mob  acts  simply  because  each  com- 
ponent so  willed,  and  itself  originates  nothing. 
To  cause  the  stampede,  some  one  must  cry  "  Fire !  " 
And  it  is  noticeable  that  mob-action  is  distinctly 
less  evolved,  distinctly  more  partial,  than  the  best 
individual  action  that  could  have  been  forthcoming. 
Vox  populi,  vox  Dei,  is  not  complimentary  to  the 
moral  order  of  the  world. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  most  powerful 
weapon  of  propaganda  is  example  ;  not  example 
with  one  eye  on  the  neighbor,  and  consequently 
more  theatrical  than  genuine,  but  the  sincere  daily 
expression  of  one's  own  purified  social  instincts. 
And  one  must  be  contented  with  partial  results 
until  the  full  results  can  be  reached.  One  cannot 
live  the  social  life  in  an  unsocial  community,  for 
the  conditions  do  not  allow  it.  One  suffers  always 
from  the  ignorance  of  one's  neighbors.  One  is 
conscious  of  a  forced  complicity  in  every  social 
crime.  But  one  can  live  a  more  human  and  more 
social  life  than  one  has  been  living,  and  from  each 
new  vantage  ground  ascend  another  step.  The 
community  will  follow,  for  the  community  is  your- 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    356 

self  and  your  neighbors.  And  the  failure  of  the 
neighbor  is  not  so  much  due  to  the  fact  that  he  is 
at  heart  unsocial  as  it  is  to  the  fact  that  he  has 
not  been  awakened.  His  is  rather  a  negative  posi- 
tion, a  drifting  with  the  uninformed  current  of 
affairs.  The  positive  life  counts  out  of  proportion 
to  its  numerical  strength.  A  sentiment  must  be 
measured  not  only  by  the  number  of  persons  who 
hold  it,  but  by  its  own  intensity  and  by  the  ab- 
sence of  equally  positive  and  persistent  contrary 
sentiment.  As  an  effective  force,  one  social  man 
in  a  community  easily  outbalances  a  score  of  men 
who  are  simply  non-social.  Indeed,  if  the  one  man 
have  enough  love  and  courage  and  patience  and 
consideration,  he  may  outbalance  the  whole  of  a 
negatively  minded  community,  and  bring  it  into 
better  things.  But  whatever  the  effect  of  his  life 
on  others  may  be,  it  is  quite  certain  that  this  effect 
will  be  at  its  height  as  his  own  individual  life  is 
human  and  social  and  excellent. 

In  America,  the  machinery  for  a  more  social 
state  already  exists.  We  are  in  need  of  no  politi- 
cal revolution.  Nor  could  the  social  state,  from 
its  very  nature,  be  the  result  of  any  outward  revo- 
lution. Its  coming  is  an  inner  process,  a  growth 
in  love  and  humanity.  We  have  the  power,  in 
the  suffrage,  to  accomplish  all  needed  reforms, 
just  so  soon  as  the  reforms  have  been  accomplished 
in  our  own  desires. 

Since  the  suffrage  is  so  important  a  social  tool, 
it  behooves  us  to  guard  it  with  every  care,  not  only 


28a  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

its  honesty,  but  also  its  social  quality.  We  gain 
no  excellence  through  suffrage,  if  the  suffrage  is 
not  in  excellent  hands.  We  are  too  prone  to  think 
that  the  suffrage  is  a  talisman,  a  dumb  wonder- 
worker whose  mere  presence  achieves  the  miracle. 
The  fact  that  republics,  in  spite  of  their  partial 
successes,  have  failed  to  accomplish  the  splendid 
programme  laid  out  for  them  by  their  founders 
should  alone  disillusionize  us  and  make  us  see  that 
the  hand  back  of  the  ballot  must  be  intelligent, 
and  must  have  something  more  than  mere  fingers 
and  thumb  to  recommend  it.  The  suffrage  is  in 
need  of  keener  scrutiny.  At  the  present  time  it  is 
not  universal.  We  exclude  all  classes  thought  to 
be  disqualified,  that  is  to  say,  all  young  persons 
under  twenty-one,  all  foreigners,  all  insane  persons, 
all  invalids  not  able  to  reach  the  ballot-box  in  per- 
son, all  persons  who  have  too  recently  changed  their 
residence,  and  finally,  by  a  great  injustice,  we  ex- 
clude all  women  in  the  majority  of  states,  quite  re- 
gardless of  fitness  or  unfitness.  We  have  limited 
suffrage  rather  than  universal  suffrage.  The  prin- 
ciple underlying  the  exclusion  is  a  perfectly  sound 
one,  —  the  suffrage  may  not  be  claimed  by  those 
who  are  not  qualified  to  use  it.  The  difficulty  is 
that  the  line  of  distinction  is  not  properly  drawn. 

Universal  suffrage  is  not  intelligent.  It  is  in 
reality  most  unintelligent,  an  altogether  barbarous 
misapplication  of  democratic  principles.  The  fact 
that  all  our  men  and  women  and  children  are  the 
agents  of  the  social  purpose  does  not  at  all  imply 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    357 

fchat  each  one  of  them  is  prepared  for  each  and 
every  social  function.  For  each  function  certain 
conditions  are  required,  and  the  fulfillment  of  the 
social  purpose  requires  us  as  causationists  to  first 
fulfill  these  conditions.  This  is  all  so  manifest 
that  no  illustration  is  needed.  It  is  precisely  the 
same  in  this  matter  of  the  suffrage.  Not  every 
one  is  prepared  to  exercise  it,  but  we  must  see  to 
it  that  the  exclusions  and  admissions  are  on  just 
grounds.  To  whom,  then,  does  it  properly  belong ; 
from  whom  must  it  properly  be  withheld  ? 

It  belongs  evidently  to  mature  participants  of  the 
social  life.  It  must  be  withheld  evidently  from 
all  persons  who  are  either  immature  or  are  non- 
participants  of  the  social  life. 

I  think  this  is  a  just  answer,  and  that  the  work- 
ing out  of  it  would  give  us  a  just  suffrage.  Let 
us  ask  what  it  is  to  be  mature  and  participant. 

In  the  first  place  participation  is  not  a  matter 
of  sex.  In  America,  our  men  are  so  engrossed 
with  business  affairs,  that  our  women  have  been 
repeatedly  charged  with  over-participation  in  so- 
cial life.  The  way  out  would  not  be  the  retreat 
of  the  women,  but  the  advance  of  the  men.  In 
any  case,  the  women  are  a  very  active  and  very  im- 
portant element  in  our  social  life,  and  to  exclude 
them  from  the  suffrage  is  as  unwise  as  it  is  unjust. 
Neither  is  participation  a  matter  of  race  or  color 
or  religion.  In  the  second  place,  participation 
requires  the  possession  of  normal  mental  and  phy- 
Bical  powers.    The  man  adjudged  to  be  insane,  and 


358  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

the  invalid  confined  to  his  room,  are  hardly  in  a 
position  to  guide  affairs  which  they  are  incapaci- 
tated from  sharing.  There  is  something  to  be  said 
in  favor  of  the  temporary  invalid,  and  of  the  man 
laid  up  for  the  moment  by  some  accident,  and  a 
nicer  scrutiny  will  make  provision  for  them.  Fur- 
thermore, participation  manifestly  requires  resi- 
dence and  a  genuine  share  in  current  activities. 
And  finally  and  most  emphatically,  participation 
requires  an  ability  to  read  and  write  and  speak  the 
English  language.  Without  this  ability,  no  man 
or  woman,  whatever  their  other  qualification,  may 
be  truly  said  to  take  part  in  our  American  life. 
They  are  excluded  from  its  higher  activities,  they 
have  no  share  in  its  larger  thought,  they  do  not 
come  into  touch  with  its  representative  men  and 
women.  How  real  this  disqualification  is,  a  man 
must  feel,  however  well  educated,  who  has  lived  for 
some  time  in  a  country  whose  language  he  did  not 
speak.  The  sense  of  social  exclusion  is  absolute 
and  appalling.  He  would  be  rash  indeed  to  wish 
to  vote  on  any  local  question. 

To  be  mature  is  an  equally  definite  requirement, 
but  somewhat  more  difficult  to  establish.  As  be- 
tween the  bright  child  of  twelve  and  many  a  man 
and  woman  of  thirty,  between  an  alert  collegian 
and  an  illiterate  fellow  just  past  his  majority,  the 
judgment  of  maturity  would  often  have  to  be  given 
to  the  cadet ;  but  since  the  line  must  be  drawn 
for  the  present  somewhat  arbitrarily,  it  may  well 
stand  for  both  sexes  at  twenty-one.     But  maturity 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    359 

requires  more  than  mere  age.  It  requires,  like 
social  participation,  a  sound  mental  condition  and 
at  least  the  elements  of  education.  At  the  present 
time,  when  so  large  a  part  of  human  communica- 
tion is  by  means  of  the  written  and  printed  word, 
a  man  who  does  not  read  cannot  be  called  mature, 
for  he  has  been  shut  out  from  the  intelligence  of 
the  world,  and  has  not  come  under  the  influence  of 
those  forces  which  make  for  maturity.  To  admit 
him  to  the  franchise  is  most  unsuitable  and  un- 
intelligent. When  at  the  same  time  we  exclude 
intelligent  women,  we  are  curiously  inconsistent. 

If,  then,  the  suffrage  were  given  to  all  mature 
participants  of  the  social  life,  it  would  be  given  to 
all  men  and  women  over  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
irrespective  of  race  or  color  or  religion,  provided 
they  had  normal  mental  power,  and  could  read, 
write,  and  speak  the  English  language ;  and  it  would 
be  withheld  from  all  persons,  regardless  of  sex  and 
nationality,  if  they  could  not  satisfy  these  very  sim- 
ple and  rational  requirements.  This  would  enfran- 
chise the  majority  of  women  and  a  few  Asiatics; 
it  would  disfranchise  many  negroes  and  illiterate 
whites,  and  all  ignorant  immigrants,  Italians,  Poles, 
Hungarians,  Slavs,  who  cannot  by  any  stretch  of 
the  term  be  said  to  participate  in  our  present  na- 
tional social  life.  And  both  of  these  changes,  of 
enfranchisement  and  disfranchisement,  would  be 
most  salutary,  and  in  direct  line  with  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  social  purpose. 

These  measures  may  well  be  urged,  because  it  is 


360  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

felt  that  they  are  just ;  but  measures  which  are  just 
are  found  in  the  long  run  to  be  likewise  expedient. 
It  is  too  late  a  day  to  plead  the  social  usefulness  of 
women,  for  that  is  quite  a  foregone  conclusion.  In 
so  many  vocations  they  have  proven  themselves 
the  equals  of  men,  and  in  some  their  superiors, 
that  the  state  can  no  longer  afford  to  lose  the  in- 
terest and  the  service  of  women.  It  is  not  only 
unjust  to  women  to  exclude  them  from  the  suffrage, 
but  it  is  unjust  to  the  best  interests  of  the  com- 
munity. Women  are  not  more  moral  than  men. 
Like  most  protected  and  semi-protected  persons, 
they  entertain  abstractly  a  higher  moral  standard 
than  is  professed  or  carried  out  by  men  of  affairs, 
but  this  is  simply  because  they  have  been  sub- 
jected less  to  the  stress  and  strain  of  life  in  the 
open.  True  morality  is  a  product  of  this  larger 
social  experience.  When  women  compete  with 
men,  when  they  come  to  put  their  sentiments  to 
the  test  of  action,  they  do  not  prove  themselves 
more  moral.  One  may  not  quote  the  affair  of  Eve, 
for  Adam's  subsequent  lack  of  gallantry  leaves 
him  in  the  more  unfavorable  light  of  the  two. 
However,  it  is  in  the  open  that  women  come  them- 
selves into  the  larger  moral  life.  Their  enfran- 
chisement may  not  be  urged  under  any  illusion 
that  they  would  purify  the  ballot.  That  will  only 
come  about  when,  through  education  and  experi- 
ence, both  men  and  women  find  that  righteousness 
is  the  only  rational  and  practical  scheme  of  life. 
Bat  this  enfranchisement  may  well  be  urged,  both 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    361 

as  a  matter  of  delayed  justice,  and  from  a  belief 
that  the  state  would  gain  tremendously  in  all  its 
deliberations  and  activities  by  adding  the  interest 
and  point  of  view  and  service  of  women  to  the  in- 
terest and  point  of  view  and  service  of  men. 

In  the  same  way,  the  enfranchisement  of  those 
Orientals  who  elect  America,  and  who  have  the 
intelligence  and  industry  to  learn  the  English 
language,  would  be  both  just  and  expedient.  It 
need  hardly  be  added  that  this  ingathering  would 
not  include  the  crowd  of  coolies  who  come  here 
simply  as  temporary  workers,  and  who,  in  the  mat- 
ter of  language,  essay  nothing  more  serious  than 
"pidgin"  English. 

Universal  suffrage  has  so  long  been  a  shibboleth 
of  democracy  that  any  proposition  to  restrict  the 
suffrage  by  withdrawing  it  from  persons  who  have 
once  enjoyed  the  right  to  misuse  it  is  pretty  sure 
to  meet  with  a  tremendous  outcry,  and  particularly 
from  those  more  intelligent  states  of  the  Union 
which  are  not  themselves  suffering  from  the  pre- 
sence of  a  large  ignorant  vote.  Massachusetts  is 
shocked  that  South  Carolina  does  not  wish  to  be 
governed  by  illiterate  negroes,  even  though  Massa- 
chusetts is  herself  wincing  a  little  bit  under  the 
pressure  of  her  own  increasing  Irish  vote.  But  no 
one  can  go  into  the  black  belt  of  the  South,  into 
the  homes  of  the  "  poor  whites,"  into  the  coal 
mining  districts  of  the  Appalachians,  into  the 
Italian  quarters  of  any  metropolis,  without  feeling 
the  keen  injustice,  the  absolute  social  unwisdom  of 


362  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

an  Ignorant,  unqualified  voting  list.  Universal  sut 
frage  is  unsound  in  theory,  quite  as  unsound  as  it 
would  be  for  a  father  and  mother  with  half  a  dozen 
children  to  conduct  their  family  affairs  by  popular 
vote  ;  and  it  is  disastrous  in  practice.  The  social 
purpose  in  America  cannot  be  furthered  by  persons 
who  have  no  conception,  and  can  have  none,  of  what 
that  purpose  is. 

The  argument  for  a  restricted  suffrage  does  not 
at  all  invalidate  the  statement  that  each  man  and 
each  woman  and  each  child  is  an  agent  of  the 
social  purpose,  an  agent  in  whom  and  through 
whom  the  social  purpose  is  to  be  accomplished. 
Each  child  fulfills  the  social  purpose  by  growing 
strong  and  beautiful  and  accomplished  and  good 
under  the  influence  of  those  forces  which  an  en- 
lightened adult  world  brings  to  bear  upon  child- 
life.  Each  ignorant  adult  fulfills  the  social  pur- 
pose, not  by  going  and  voting,  and  so  imposing  his 
own  ignorance  and  half  view  of  life  upon  the  des- 
tiny of  the  community,  but  by  going  to  work  and 
learning  to  read  and  write  and  speak  the  language 
of  the  community,  and  by  otherwise  cultivating 
those  qualities  which  wiU  enable  him  to  participate 
in  its  social  life.  And,  finally,  an  educated  adult, 
a  qualified  voter,  fulfills  the  social  purpose  by  first 
idealizing  and  perfecting  his  own  individual  life  in 
every  way  in  his  power,  and  then  by  endeavoring, 
through  a  right  use  of  the  suffrage  and  other  social 
influences,  to  establish  those  educational,  esthetic, 
and  industrial  conditions  which  best  minister  to 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    363 

the  perfecting  of  social  life  and  the  increase  of 
human  wealth.  Universal  adult  suffrage  should 
be  the  goal  of  every  intelligent  community ;  but  it 
must  be  reached,  not  by  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
disqualified,  but  by  the  qualifying  of  the  disfran- 
chised. If  the  social  instinct  were  developed  in 
the  qualified  voters  of  America,  this  individual 
human  betterment  would  be  the  supreme  object  of 
their  effort,  rather  than  private  profit  and  privi- 
lege. But  it  is  quite  hopeless  to  expect  any  great 
change  of  view  on  the  part  of  older  people.  When 
Harvey  demonstrated  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
it  is  said  that  not  a  single  physician  in  England 
over  forty  years  of  age  accepted  the  new  view.  It 
was  the  same  with  evolution.  It  has  been  the  same 
with  nearly  every  advance  movement.  The  later 
years  of  life  seem  chiefly  useful  in  working  out  and 
perfecting  the  impulses  of  earlier  days.  The  con- 
tagion of  new  ideas  is  a  matter  for  younger  bloasd> 
The  conception  of  a  social  state,  working  with  all 
singleness  of  purpose  and  with  a  quite  religious 
devotion  for  the  increase  of  personal  integrity  and 
worth,  the  increase  of  human  wealth,  the  unfolding 
and  perfecting  of  the  spirit,  is  not  a  conception 
which  readily  displaces  the  old-established  passion 
for  getting  ahead.  The  conception  of  the  social 
states  must  grow  up  with  another  generation. 

Education,  that  practical  process  by  which  we 
realize  the  social  purpose,  has  then  a  double  work 
to  perform.  It  is  to  carry  out  the  social  purpose 
in  the  present  children  and  youth,  men  and  women 


364  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

of  the  race,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is  to  cultivate 
to  the  utmost  that  social  instinct  which  will  make 
each  succeeding  generation  more  devoted  and  more 
efficient  agents  of  the  social  purpose.  But  a  stream 
cannot  rise  above  its  source.  This  cultivation  of 
the  social  instinct  can  only  be  accomplished  if  the 
teachers,  the  official  agents  of  the  social  purpose, 
have  this  clearly  defined  point  of  view  and  the 
power  of  engrafting  it.  And  all  this  brings  us 
back  to  our  starting  point,  to  that  initial  argument 
of  the  first  chapter,  that  a  teacher  is  ill  qualified 
for  either  half  of  his  task,  however  profound  his 
knowledge  of  language  or  mathematics  or  science, 
if  he  have  not  along  with  this  technical  equipmei^t 
that  far  more  important  human  equipment,  a  clear, 
practical  philosophy  of  life,  and  causational  meth- 
ods of  applying  his  philosophy. 

In  the  lower  schools  at  the  present  time,  the 
teachers  are  commonly  women,  and  this  is  good  or 
bad  according  to  the  personality  of  the  particular 
woman.  It  is  good  if  the  personality  be  large,  if 
the  woman  be  of  such  age  and  experience  that  she 
is  able  and  willing  to  deal  with  the  details  of  child- 
hood, and  if  she  is  deterred  by  no  false  modesty 
from  dealing  with  the  bodily  as  well  as  the  intel- 
lectual needs.  If  she  be  herself  a  mother  and 
could  spare  the  time  for  this  public  service,  it  would 
add  immensely  to  her  equipment,  for  it  would  add 
both  the  experience  and  the  heart  of  motherhood. 
But  the  plan  of  women  teachers  is  exceedingly 
bad,  and  especially  for  sturdy,  growing,  virile  boys, 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    365 

if  the  women  be  inexperienced  young  girls,  fresh 
from  college  or  normal  school,  and  quite  imwilling 
and  unable  to  deal  with  the  vital,  bodily  side  of 
life.  From  the  point  of  view  of  those  of  us  who 
believe  in  the  unity  of  man,  and  in  organic  educa- 
tion, it  is  quite  absurd  and  unreasonable  to  intrust 
the  education  of  a  boy  to  a  teacher  who  would  be 
entirely  shocked  even  to  look  upon  the  beautiful 
organism  which  she  is  supposed  to  be  developing, 
and  who  is  prevented  by  instinct  from  dealing  with 
the  boy  in  any  thoroughgoing,  effective  way.  Edu- 
cation, as  I  have  been  trying  to  present  it,  has  to 
do  with  the  body  and  all  of  its  impulses  and  its 
life,  as  well  as  with  the  intellect  and  the  heart ;  and 
only  those  are  prepared  to  undertake  the  work  who 
are  prepared  to  deal  with  the  body  and  the  intellect 
and  the  heart.  The  inexperienced  young  girls  who 
fail  in  this  work  are  much  less  to  blame  than  the 
older  persons  who  impose  so  strange  a  task.  And 
that  they  do  fail,  I  think  every  head-master  who 
has  received  boys  from  their  hands  would  be  obliged 
to  bear  witness. 

And  yet  it  is  highly  desirable  to  have  women 
teachers  for  boys  as  well  as  for  girls,  desirable  so 
that  the  boys  may  come  at  all  stages  of  their  lives 
under  the  influence  of  good  women,  and  may  have 
the  benefit  of  their  wisdom  and  point  of  view. 
But  it  seems  to  me  equally  desirable  that  girls  shall 
be  always  in  touch  with  good,  strong  men.  The 
way  out  is  very  simple.  It  is  to  have  both  men 
and  women  teachers  even  in  the  lower  schools ;  an 


366  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

elder  woman  to  deal  with  the  younger  children, 
tenderly  but  effectively,  and  with  that  matronly 
modesty  which  is  not  appalled  by  a  naked  child  and 
his  healthy  appetites ;  a  man,  strong  and  gentle,  to 
give  the  sloyd  and  some  other  sides  of  the  work.  Co- 
education can  best  be  carried  on  by  a  coeducational 
teaching  force,  and  coeducation,  in  spite  of  its  dif- 
ficulties and  occasional  disadvantages,  still  seems 
to  me  a  necessary  condition  of  that  nobler,  freer 
life  which  is  the  goal  of  enlightened  democracy. 
Society  is  made  up  of  boy-babies  and  girl-babies, 
of  boys  and  girls,  of  youths  and  maidens,  of  men 
and  women,  and  is  vastly  more  interesting  by  rea- 
son of  such  a  constitution.  To  perfect  society  is 
to  perfect  this  human  interplay  and  to  bring  about 
a  more  ideal  comradeship  all  along  the  line,  from 
the  nursery  onward. 

At  the  high  school  and  university  it  is  even 
more  important  for  the  carrying  out  of  the  social 
purpose  that  the  teaching  body  should  include  both 
m*in  and  women.  At  the  high  school,  the  question 
of  sex  is  coming  slowly  into  consciousness  ;  at  the 
university,  it  reaches  an  impulsive  and  uninstructed 
flood.  Wise  men  are  needed  in  the  gymnasium  to 
guide  and  strengthen  the  boys  and  men ;  wise 
women  are  needed  to  serve  the  girls  and  women. 
Both  instructors  must  deal  with  the  question  fear- 
lessly and  effectively,  both  to  prepare  for  wise 
parenthood  and  to  guard  from  evil.  But  in  other 
lines  of  instruction,  the  best  results  come  from 
utilizing  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  both  men 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    367 

and  women  for  both  boys  and  girls,  men  and 
women.  And  always  the  mission  of  the  teacher  is 
the  double  one  of  realizing  the  social  purpose  in 
the  persons  of  his  immediate  students,  and  of 
cultivating  that  conception  of  a  social  state  which 
shall  make  for  the  increased  human  wealth  of  all, 
of  a  state  which  shall  resolutely  seek  the  well-being 
of  each  and  every  citizen,  his  strength  and  beauty 
and  accomplishment  and  goodness. 

But  we  should  be  ill  serving  our  ideal  in  this 
work  of  official  education,  if  the  process  is  not 
made,  with  equal  thoroughness,  to  serve  its  own 
agents,  the  teachers,  and  to  help  on  the  perfecting  of 
their  own  lives.  A  teacher  who  sacrifices  himself, 
a  process  which  sacrifices  its  own  agents,  is  already 
self-defeated.  It  is  altogether  as  important  that  the 
school  and  academy  and  university  shall  bring  daily 
inspiration  and  help  to  the  teacher  as  to  the  child 
and  youth  and  man.  And  this  falls  in  excellently 
with  our  theory  of  the  experimental  life.  If  one 
bring  good  health  and  high  spirit  to  the  adventure, 
it  is  a  sweet  delight  to  teach ;  to  meet  each  day 
affectionate  children,  inquiring  youth,  spirit-hungry 
men  and  women,  to  make  one's  own  knowledge 
clear  and  accurate  in  trying  to  present  it  to  others, 
to  gain  the  helpful  reaction  of  mind  against  mind. 
But  one  must  bring  to  the  work  certain  qualifi- 
cations not  only  in  the  way  of  direct  preparation, 
but  also  in  the  way  of  experience  in  the  great  open 
of  life.  And  then  there  comes  a  time  when  this 
work  is  no  longer  good  for  the  teacher.     He  has 


868  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

given  his  best  to  the  work  and  he  has  got  the  best 
out  of  the  work.  To  be  at  once  and  always  a 
teacher  is  a  very  poor  plan  of  life.  It  is  much 
better  to  regard  the  teaching  as  a  contribution  and 
a  discipline,  and  then  to  pass  on.  When  one  has 
made  the  contribution  and  reaped  the  discipline, 
one  is  bound,  by  the  requirements  of  the  experi- 
mental life,  to  seek  a  larger  personal  reaction  and 
a  theatre  for  greater  social  service.  In  doing  this, 
a  man  does  not  turn  his  back  upon  old  interests 
and  pursuits.  He  simply  broadens  and  extends 
them.  As  an  investigator,  as  a  writer,  as  an  artist, 
he  carries  his  branch  one  or  many  steps  further  and 
touches  a  larger  audience.  As  a  public-minded 
householder,  as  a  statesman,  he  may  bring  his 
ripened  powers  to  the  service  of  a  still  larger 
destiny.  To  keep  its  agents  vital,  to  call  them 
when  qualified,  to  part  company  with  them  when 
they  are  needed  elsewhere,  is  a  most  important  par^ 
of  the  duty  of  official  education,  and  apparently 
most  difficult.  I  am  emphasizing  this  need  so 
strongly  because  on  all  sides,  and  especially  in  our 
public  schools,  one  sees  feeble,  dispirited  teaching 
and  worn-out,  discouraged  teachers.  One  cannot 
communicate  what  one  has  not  got,  and  it  is  abun- 
dant, beautiful,  glorious  life  that  we  want. 

With  the  progress  of  this  conception  of  the  so- 
cial state,  formal  education  for  all  children  of  the 
state  wiU  cover  the  first  twenty-two,  or  even  the 
first  twenty-five  years  of  life.  After  that  ought  to 
follow  a  full  half  century  of  splendid  self-directed 


TUE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    369 

activity,  to  be  followed  by  the  twilight  peace  of 
wise  counsels  and  old  age.  This  half  century  of 
maturity  is  the  time  for  playing  out  the  full  drama 
of  life,  for  realizing  the  social  purpose  in  all  its 
height  and  depth  and  breadth.  It  is  now  that  a 
man  establishes  his  home,  begets  his  children,  finds 
his  varying  and  progressive  life-work,  touches  the 
destiny  of  his  age.  The  heart  beats  high,  the  eye 
flashes,  the  cheek  inflames,  the  blood  goes  riotously 
through  the  veins ;  for  now  it  is  that  a  man  knows 
that  he  is  the  regent  of  an  eternal  God,  the  agent 
of  a  superb  purpose,  the  knight  and  soldier  of  good 
fortune.  God  help  him  if  he  is  less  than  this,  for 
he  has  missed  the  full  measure  of  a  life. 

It  is  the  high  mission  of  education  to  beget  in 
all  of  us  this  avariciousness  of  the  best.  School 
and  home  alike  fail  if  they  do  not  impart,  along 
with  a  magnificent  organism,  a  full  appetite  for  the 
splendor  of  life.  If  the  educational  process  has 
been  wise,  there  has  been  from  the  lower  school 
onward  a  gradual  abdication  of  authority  on  the 
part  of  both  teacher  and  parent,  an  increasing  in- 
sistence upon  self -activity  and  self-direction.  When 
these  young  people  come  to  face  the  larger  respon* 
sibility  of  mature  life,  they  come  prepared.  If 
they  bring  a  distinct  plan  of  life,  they  come  addi- 
tionally  well  armed.  As  Whewell  quaintly  says, 
"  Rightly  to  propose  a  problem  is  no  inconsidera- 
ble step  towards  its  solution."  In  this  larger  life- 
drama,  the  functions  of  thinker  and  doer  may  not 
be  separated.     The  specialization  and  division  of 


870  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

labor  have  been  carried  much  too  far.  It  is  not 
true,  that  fiction  which  the  vagarists  would  have 
us  believe,  that  by  taking  ten  fragments  of  men 
and  piecing  them  together,  you  produce  a  tenfold 
giant.  On  the  contrary,  you  produce  something 
distinctly  less  than  a  whole  man,  for  each  fragment 
lacks  soundness  and  integrity.  In  the  domain  of 
art,  the  divorce  of  artist  and  artisan  has  crippled 
both.  The  masters  of  the  Renaissance  were  work- 
men, many  of  them  clever  artificers  in  gold  and  sil- 
ver ;  many  of  them  direct  wielders  of  the  chisel ; 
many  of  them  architects  and  engineers  as  well  as 
artists  ;  many  of  them  musicians,  not  a  few  of  them 
poets.  The  versatility  of  Leonardo  and  Michel- 
angelo was  not  so  much  a  product  of  their  genius 
as  a  condition  of  it.  The  effect  of  separating  the 
artist  and  artisan,  and  of  robbing  art-work  of  the 
joyous  art-spirit,  has  been  to  produce  work  which 
William  Morris  so  strongly  characterized  as  being 
either  stark  utilitarianism  or  idiotic  sham.  The 
artist,  separated  from  the  material  which  he  is  in- 
directly to  fashion,  produces  designs  which  are  tor- 
tured and  grotesque,  —  essentially  inartistic.  The 
artisan,  deprived  of  the  art-spirit,  turns  out  work 
devoid  of  feeling  and  subtlety.  The  truth  of  this 
contention  finds  one  long  illustration  in  the  history 
of  art.  And  not  only  is  it  true  in  the  graphic  arts, 
in  sculpture,  and  in  painting,  but  also  in  music  and 
in  literature.  The  great  composers  have  been  mas- 
ter musicians.  The  great  writers  have  been  men 
of   action,  —  Thucydides,  the  soldier;  Dante,  the 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    371 

patriot ;  Shakespeare,  the  actor ;  Goethe,  the  states- 
man. Everything  vital  in  representation  has  been 
first  rehearsed  in  action,  just  as  everything  vital  in 
action  has  been  first  rehearsed  in  thought  and  feel- 
ing. It  is  a  unit  world,  and  truth  hides  itself  unless 
sought  for  in  its  totality. 

It  is  the  same  in  education  and  in  life.  One 
man  may  not  do  the  thinking  and  another  man 
the  work,  and  have  the  thinking  and  the  work 
sound.  The  closet  philosopher,  out  of  touch  with 
life,  himself  not  a  teacher,  perhaps  not  even  a 
father,  cannot  be  counted  a  very  safe  guide  in  so 
eminently  human  and  social  a  process  as  education. 
The  truth  is  not  reached  in  that  way.  The  leader, 
the  teacher,  must  be  in  the  midst  of  men,  a  worker 
among  workers,  a  direct  observer  of  the  life  which 
he  seeks  to  know  and  guide  and  redeem.  The 
greatest  of  human  teachers,  the  "men  whose  teach- 
ing has  been  so  transcendent  that  it  has  become 
the  foundation  of  a  religious  cult,  have  moved  in 
and  out  among  the  people,  and  so  much  truth  as 
they  have  given  to  men  has  been  discovered,  not 
invented. 

If  the  thinker,  to  be  sound,  must  also  be  a  doer, 
it  is  quite  as  imperative  that  the  doer  shall  also  be 
a  thinker.  There  is  no  disaster  so  overwhelming 
and  complete  as  when  a  spiritual  plan  falls  into 
the  hands  of  unspiritual  agents  and  they  proceed 
to  the  impossible  task  of  carrying  it  out.  Nothing 
has  done  so  much  to  discredit  the  newer  forms  of 
edncation,  the  kindergarten,  manual  training,  and 


372  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

science  teaching,  as  the  lack  of  genuine  qualifica< 
tion  on  the  part  of  its  agents.  It  is  necessary  to 
fight  shy  of  doctrinaires  everywhere,  not  only  among 
the  closet  philosophers,  but  even  more  among  the 
so-called  "  practical "  people.  One  who  is  in  the 
world  of  affairs  runs  against  many  theorists,  from 
the  mild  elderly  woman,  who  "  goes  in  for  the  lost 
tribes,"  to  the  rampant  egotist,  who  is  for  giving 
his  own  twist  of  thought  to  all  things  thinkable. 
The  name  of  these  theorists  is  legion.  The  smaller 
and  more  inadequate  the  initial  experience,  the 
more  stupendous  the  theory  and  the  more  insistent 
the  claim  of  being  practical. 

To  avoid  these  pitfalls  and  render  genuine  so- 
cial service,  one  is  bound  to  seek  the  more  complete 
view  of  life  which  results  from  enlarged  thinking 
and  diversified  activity,  quite  as  one  is  bound  by 
the  requirements  of  the  experimental  life  to  do  it 
for  the  health  of  one's  own  spirit.  There  is  no 
antagonism  between  the  social  and  the  individual 
requirements.  As  the  number  of  experimentalists 
increases,  and  society  becomes  permeated  with  per- 
sons bent  on  human  wealth,  the  conditions  favor- 
able for  the  attainment  of  this  good  fortune  will 
be  increasingly  current.  But  individuals  working 
together  for  a  common  purpose  constitute  a  state, 
and  as  they  themselves  become  more  social  and 
more  cooperative,  the  state  which  represents  their 
joint  sentiment  and  activity  becomes  more  social 
and  cooperative. 

It  is  in  this  silent,  almost  imperceptible  way  that 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    373 

the  social  state  is  born,  not  by  outward  revolution, 
not  by  class  warfare,  not  by  each  man's  waiting  for 
his  neighbor  to  be  good,  but  by  this  more  subtle 
change  in  individual  sentiment  and  practice. 

Few  sentiments  affect  the  welfare  of  masses  of 
men  so  intimately  and  so  profoundly  as  the  concep* 
tion  they  entertain  of  the  function  of  the  state ; 
for  the  state,  as  the  expression  of  the  corporate 
will,  becomes  by  far  the  most  important  and  most* 
powerful  agent  of  the  social  purpose.  The  history 
of  the  state  is  a  history  of  men's  changing  senti- 
ment in  regard  to  human  relations  and  social  op- 
portunity. The  conception  of  the  social  state  which 
is  now  emerging  has  been  a  slow  evolution,  and 
marks  a  tremendous  advance  in  civilization.  The 
change  has  been  from  a  negative  to  a  positive  con- 
ception. As  the  institute  of  justice,  the  state  was 
supposed  to  concern  itself  solely  with  maintaining 
the  freedom  of  its  citizens.  And  this  duty  was 
believed  to  be  discharged  by  the  negative  process  of 
preventing  aggression,  —  either  foreign  aggression, 
as  against  the  nation  ;  or  internal  aggression,  in- 
dividual against  individual.  The  state  was  the  cor- 
porate policeman,  and  its  one  motto  was  "  Hands 
off!  "  This  primitive  conception  did  good  service 
in  its  day,  for,  beside  resisting  foreign  invasion,  it 
substituted  a  public  tribunal,  with  impartial  stan- 
dards of  justice,  for  the  broad  hazard  of  personal 
revenge.  And  this  was  a  great  gain  which  has 
not  yet  come  to  perfection.  But  as  men  wrought 
out  such  partial  freedom  as  they  might,  there  came 


874  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

a  growing  perception  that  the  full  measure  of  freei 
dom  does  not  result  from  this  negative  letting- 
alone.  Place  a  man  naked  and  unarmed  in  the 
midst  of  a  most  bountiful  nature,  and  though  he  is 
nominally  free,  he  is  in  reality  the  most  pitiable 
of  prisoners,  the  slave  of  daily  want,  of  danger,  of 
fear,  of  lack  of  opportunity.  His  freedom  is  the 
veriest  mirage.  So,  too,  the  citizen  of  a  state 
which  merely  protects  him  from  physical  violence 
enjoys  a  very  shadowy  sort  of  freedom  indeed,  and 
especially  if  the  bounty  of  nature  has  long  since 
been  appropriated  by  earlier  comers.  One  may 
still  study  this  particular  variety  of  freedom  in 
many  corners  of  America.  But  with  a  larger  ex- 
perience of  life,  and  the  intelligence  which  grows 
out  of  experience,  there  comes  a  more  positive  con- 
ception of  freedom.  It  is  seen  to  consist  not  in 
letting  a  man  alone,  for  that  freedom  turns  out  to 
be  an  illusion,  but  in  surrounding  him  with  oppor- 
tunities and  facilities  for  the  full  play  of  his  in- 
dividuality, the  effective  working  out  of  his  life 
purposes.  With  this  changed  conception  of  free- 
dom there  comes  a  changed  conception  of  the  func- 
tion of  the  state.  As  the  instrument  of  freedom 
the  state  must  play  a  more  positive  role  in  the 
affairs  of  men.  The  function  is  more  than  one  of 
mere  bodily  protection,  it  is  the  function  of  en- 
larged opportunity.  It  is  the  experience  of  men 
everywhere  that  by  association  they  can  accom- 
plish ends  which  are  quite  impossible  to  the  solitary 
worker.    The  more  just  and  complete  the  cobpera- 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    375 

tion  the  more  beneficent  the  results.  The  state, 
being  the  institute  of  justice,  and  being  by  its  na- 
ture all  inclusive,  represents  the  most  perfect  form 
of  cooperation  possible.  The  large  undertakings 
now  successfully  carried  out  by  private  corpora- 
tions can  be  still  more  successfully  carried  out  by 
the  state ;  for  the  private  corporation,  being  bent 
on  profits,  naturally  takes  the  ground  that  any- 
thing is  good  enough  which  the  public  will  accept, 
and  no  price  too  high  that  the  public  will  pay ; 
while  the  state,  being  free  from  this  necessity,  and 
able  to  borrow  money  at  nominal  interest,  may 
take  the  more  ideal  ground  that  nothing  is  good 
enough  which  is  short  of  the  very  best.  All  of 
the  tremendous  arguments  which  may  be  urged 
for  association  as  a  general  principle  of  conduct 
may  be  urged  with  heightened  force  in  favor  of 
that  more  complete  and  perfect  form  of  associa- 
tion represented  by  the  state. 

And  to  this  broader  and  more  helpful  conception 
of  the  state  we  are  steadily  advancing.  One  by 
one  the  state  has  been  taking  over  functions  and 
duties  once  vehemently  denied  to  it,  but  now  amply 
justified  as  helping  to  free  men  from  the  tyranny  of 
things.  Lighthouses  have  been  built  and  manned  ; 
waterways  improved ;  maps  and  charts  prepared. 
Cities  have  been  paved  and  lighted  and  drained ; 
water  has  been  regarded  as  a  public  necessity. 
Water  power  and  natural  gas  for  manufacturing 
purposes  have  been  made  available.  Tram  lines 
have  been  taken  over  or  built ;  municipal  tenements 


376  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

have  been  erected ;  free  libraries  and  public  baths 
and  gymnasiums  have  been  established.  In  order 
to  facilitate  communication  of  thought  and  spread 
intelligence,  a  post-office  system  has  been  inaugu- 
rated, which,  in  point  of  efficiency  and  in  volume  of 
business  transacted,  rivals  the  most  gigantic  of  our 
modern  gigantic  enterprises.  In  some  countries,  and 
notably  in  those  where  the  service  in  this  respect  is 
the  best  and  cheapest  for  the  people  at  large,  both 
telegraphs  and  railways  have  been  taken  over  by 
the  state.  Boards  of  health  have  been  established ; 
quarantine  has  been  inaugurated  ;  currency  has  been 
provided.  Best  of  all,  in  every  country  marked  by 
any  degree  of  intelligence  and  prosperity,  an  elabo- 
rate system  of  public  education  has  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  public  necessity,  —  schoolhouses  have 
been  built  by  the  thousand,  colleges  and  universi- 
ties by  the  hundred,  investigations  have  been  car- 
ried on,  publications  issued,  expeditions  fitted  out. 
This  list,  long  as  it  is,  does  not  by  any  means  ex- 
haust the  present  directions  of  state  activity.  And 
from  none  of  these  multitudinous  functions  would 
any  but  a  very  small  body  of  reactionaries  have  the 
state  withdraw.  There  is  no  turning  back  in  this 
work  of  increasing  the  freedom  of  the  individual 
by  diminishing  the  tyranny  of  things. 

A  function  once  taken  over  meets  with  so  lit- 
tle opposition,  because  it  is  recognized  that  by  no 
private  agency  could  the  work  be  so  efficiently 
accomplished.  No  one  would  seriously  propose  to 
give  over  the  post-office  or  abandon  public  educa- 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    3T? 

tion.  That  both  of  these  services  can  be  vastly 
improved  quite  goes  without  saying,  but  the  point 
is  that  they  are  nevertheless  far  more  efficient  than 
they  would  be  in  private  hands.  In  view  of  this 
very  favorable  experience,  and  the  sound  theory 
underlying  it,  we  should  be  passing  at  once  to  the 
complete  application  of  association  and  cooperation 
by  having  the  state  take  over  all  of  our  public  utili- 
ties, were  it  not  for  the  dominance  of  that  particu- 
lar form  of  the  unsocial  spirit  known  as  commer- 
cialism. A  considerable  body  of  our  professedly 
democratic  people  still  like  to  exploit  their  neigh- 
bors. This  spirit  of  greed  is  the  most  formidable 
enemy  of  the  social  purpose,  for  it  is  forever  setting 
up  toll-gates  on  the  path  to  better  things.  It  hin- 
ders the  realization  of  the  social  state  in  precisely 
the  same  way  that  the  vendetta,  the  spirit  of  pri- 
vate revenge,  of  over-requital,  hinders  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice.  It  is  a  spirit  which  the  socially- 
minded  person,  the  experimentalist,  is  bound  to 
fight  to  the  death. 

Kampant  as  the  spirit  of  commercialism  now  is, 
I  cannot  but  regard  its  manifestation  as  the  last 
upflaming  of  the  fire  before  it  goes  out.  The  fail- 
ure of  commercialism,  ninety-seven  per  cent.,  I  be- 
lieve, of  those  who  pin  their  faith  to  it,  and  the 
scant  happiness  of  the  three  per  cent,  who  succeed, 
are  adding  very  telling  arguments  to  the  testimony 
of  the  experimentalists  that  the  other  way  is  better. 
Commercialism  has  its  apologists,  very  honest  folk 
no  doubt,  but  their  arguments  have  a  strange 


878  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

sound.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  a  railroad  worked 
to  pay  high  interest  on  bonds,  large  dividends  on 
watered  stock,  princely  salaries  to  the  upper  admin- 
istration, and  bent  on  developing  certain  localities 
where  its  directors  have  property  at  the  expense  of 
certain  other  localities  where  they  have  none,  —  it 
is  hard  to  believe  that  such  a  railroad  can  serve 
the  public  better  than  a  railroad  run  on  the  same 
principles  as  the  post-office.  It  is  hard  to  believe 
that  it  is  better  socially  to  have  a  dozen  families 
huddled  into  one  tenement  house  and  the  large  lot 
next  door  stand  idle,  waiting  for  a  higher  price.  It 
is  hard  to  believe  in  the  wisdom  of  an  economic 
regime  under  which  scarcity  and  want  are  the  result 
of  an  overproduction  of  necessary  commodities.  It 
is  hard  to  believe  that  human  wealth  is  increased 
and  the  social  purpose  furthered  by  committing  the 
natural  resources  of  a  country,  the  gold  and  silver, 
copper  and  iron,  coal  and  oil,  field  and  forest,  into 
the  private  keeping  of  a  few  individuals  instead  of 
administering  this  bounty  for  the  good  of  all. 

This  and  much  else  of  our  current  commercial 
doctrine  is  excessively  hard  to  believe,  so  hard,  in- 
deed, that  after  a  time  one  gives  up  the  attempt. 

But  the  social  spirit  is  deepening  and  spreading. 
The  full  programme  of  the  social  state  means  the 
nationalizing  of  land  and  of  all  industries  which 
minister  to  the  necessities  of  decent  human  living ; 
that  is,  it  means  the  taking  over  of  public  and 
necessary  utilities.  The  carrying  out  of  the  social 
purpose  requires  that  a  man  shall  have  adequate 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    378 

food  and  shelter  and  clothing,  air  and  water,  light 
and  heat,  education  and  amusement,  beauty  and 
social  opportunity.  And  further,  it  requires  that 
the  necessary  material  part  of  his  life  shall  be  won 
at  the  least  possible  expenditure  of  labor  and  time, 
so  that  the  necessary  spiritual  part  of  life  may 
have  sufficient  energy  and  leisure  for  its  realization. 
No  state,  however  ideal,  can  do  away  with  the 
necessity  of  daily  human  toil ;  but  it  can  idealize 
the  conditions  of  toil,  can  make  it  a  source  of 
health  and  pleasure,  and  it  can  limit  the  amount 
and  time  to  wholesome  bounds.  In  England  and 
America,  we  are  fighting  for  the  eight-hour  day  of 
work.  It  would  be  a  fine  thing  if  we  could  realize 
it,  but  it  would  be  still  finer  if  we  could  make  it 
four  hours,  and  we  could  if  we  wanted  to.  The 
whole  idea  of  the  social  state  is  to  further  the 
freedom  and  opportunity  of  the  individual  life, 
and  so  make  possible  the  increase  of  human  wealth. 
The  social  state  is  the  instrument  of  individualism, 
not  its  opponent.  The  social  state  limits  individu- 
alism in  only  one  way ;  —  it  denies  the  right  of  the 
individual  to  exploit  his  neighbor,  even  as  justice 
denies  the  vendetta  in  taking  over  punishment  from 
the  hands  of  private  vengeance  and  making  it  a 
state  function.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  this  ap- 
parent limitation  of  individualism  is  in  reality  a 
most  practical  and  effective  furtherance  of  indi- 
vidualism. By  preventing  individual  aggression, 
the  state  protects  the  individual  against  aggres- 
sion ;  by  making  the  general  conditions  of  life  sweet 


teO  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

and  wholesome,  the  state  makes  it  increasingly  pos- 
sible for  the  individual  to  make  his  own  life  sweet 
and  wholesome ;  by  making  the  neighbor  intelli- 
gent and  self-respecting,  the  state  helps  the  indi- 
vidual to  idealize  his  own  life.  Edifying  as  it 
would  be  for  us  all  to  turn  home  missionaries,  it 
seems  to  me  an  absurd  mistake  to  picture  the  social 
state  as  the  instrument  of  such  missionary  effort. 
What  is  good  for  the  neighbor  is  likewise  good  for 
me.  It  is  the  neighbor  who  forms  the  environment 
and  who  reacts  in  a  thousand  ways  upon  the  daily 
life  of  the  individual.  If  the  social  state  is  the 
highest  form  of  altruism,  it  is  also  the  most  accom- 
plished and  successful  form  of  selfishness.  One 
man  is  just  a  single  individual,  but  he  is  neighbor 
to  thousands. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  when  the  social  state,  through 
association  and  cooperation,  reduces  the  bread-and- 
butter  problem  to  a  minimum,  to  its  proper  place, 
it  will  rob  a  man  of  wholesome  initiative  and  enter- 
prise. The  same  argument  might  have  been  used 
against  the  suppression  of  the  robber  barons  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  or  the  Algerian  pirates  in  the 
early  days  of  the  republic.  The  social  state  is  not 
an  entity  outside  the  hearts  of  men,  alternately 
coaxing  and  browbeating  them.  It  is  an  expres- 
sion of  so  much  of  the  individual  will  as  is  common 
to  all  or  to  a  majority  of  the  community.  The 
social  state  would  mean,  not  that  men  had  lost 
initiative  and  enterprise,  but  rather  that  they  pre- 
ferred to  spend  their  initiative  and  enterprise  in 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    381 

better  and  more  social  ways  than  by  exploiting 
their  neighbors,  preferred  to  speud  this  force  in 
the  more  interesting  and  delightful  occupation  of 
perfecting  the  self  and  realizing  some  of  the  mag- 
nificent possibilities  of  the  present  moment.  To 
give  over  the  quest  of  profit  and  the  Shylock  view 
of  life  generally  is  not  to  give  over  initiative  and 
enterprise.  The  experimentalists  have  given  over 
profit,  but  I  have  painted  them  ill  if  I  have  not 
shown  them  to  be  a  more  daring  and  picturesque 
band  of  adventurers  than  ever  went  in  search  of 
the  golden  fleece.  Every  increase  in  strength,  in 
beauty,  in  accomplishment,  in  goodness,  brought 
about  by  the  betterment  of  the  life  conditions 
through  the  amelioration  and  idealizing  of  daily 
toil,  means  increased  power  to  use  this  lengthening 
leisure  to  advantage.  One  need  not  make  personal 
trial  of  the  shop-keeping  and  book-keeping  and 
time-keeping  and  the  various  other  forms  of  hold- 
ing tight  by  which  men  waste  and  lose  their  lives, 
to  see  that  on  the  very  face  of  it  such  occupations 
are  infinitely  less  worth  while  than  art  and  sci- 
ence and  letters,  investigation  and  travel,  religion 
and  music,  love  and  comradeship,  field  and  forest, 
sunshine  and  fresh  air,  even  than  swimming  and 
boat-racing  and  tennis.  The  old  remark  that  a 
man  can  be  doing  many  worse  things  than  making 
money  is  a  very  cheap  and  nasty  disposition  of  the 
august  possibilities  of  a  human  life.  When  we 
realize  the  social  state  and  so  reduce«the  bread-and- 
butter  toil  to  a  minimum,  we  shall  have  time  for  this 


882  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

more  moral  and  esthetic  side  of  occupation.  There 
is  infinite  opportunity  for  initiative  and  enterprise 
in  the  use  of  leisure.  The  carpentry  of  Jesus  un- 
doubtedly served  him  and  that  limited  number  of 
persons  who  received  of  his  good  handiwork,  but 
the  beautiful  ministry  of  his  life  came  from  his  in- 
dustrial leisure.  The  fishing  of  his  disciples  was 
certainly  useful,  but  their  world-service  flowed  out 
of  the  time  they  stole  from  their  fishing,  a  service 
quite  in  excess  of  that  of  all  the  subsequent  com- 
mercial enterprise  of  their  fellow-countrymen..  It 
is  out  of  the  serenity  and  non-compulsion  of  indus- 
trial leisure  that  the  great  and  good  things  of  life 
have  come.  We  are  great  cowards  if  we  believe 
that  the  masses  of  our  people,  kept  in  health  by  a 
wholesome  amount  of  daily  toil,  and  once  more  erect 
and  alert  with  self-respect,  are  going  to  squander  a 
leisure  to  which  they  bring  good  health  and  high 
spirit  and  a  social  heart.  Each  one  of  them  is  an 
agent  of  the  social  purpose,  and  has  his  individual, 
non-industrial  work  to  do. 

Just  as  the  state  internally  is  passing  from  the 
negative  function  of  the  policeman  to  the  positive 
function  of  opportunity,  it  is  beginning  to  show 
the  signs  of  a  similar  transformation  in  its  foreign 
relations.  Even  warfare  is  conducted  according  to 
an  international  code,  by  which  the  nations  who 
are  spectators  to  the  brutality  try  to  see  at  least 
that  the  game  is  played  fair.  The  prevention  and 
punishment  of  crime  are  furthered  by  treaties  of 
extradition.     Both  of  these  provisions  belong  to 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    383 

fche  negative  side  of  things,  but  they  are  fore- 
runners of  more  positive  movements,  for  they 
recognize  a  community  of  human  interest  which  is 
more  than  national.  For  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century  we  have  had  an  international  postal  union, 
which  has  been  a  world-wide  public  service.  In 
the  metric  system  we  have  a  partially  successful 
attempt  at  international  weights  and  measures. 
Doubtless,  we  shall  some  time  have  an  international 
currency,  saving  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies 
the  extra  clerk  hire  now  made  necessary  by  her 
non-decimal  system,  and  saving  all  nationalities  a 
great  amount  of  inconvenience  and  useless  labor. 
We  have  the  Red  Cross  Association,  recognizing 
in  suffering  no  nationality.  We  have  peace  con- 
ferences, and  international  congresses  of  arts  and 
sciences  and  letters  and  religion.  These  agencies 
do  not  yet  outbalance  the  tremendous,  binital, 
wasteful  armament  of  Europe,  but  they  have  the 
future  on  their  side.  Every  one  of  these  inter- 
national bonds  is  of  great  value,  not  only  as  a 
humanity  and  a  convenience,  but  as  the  beginning  of 
that  more  complete  internationalism,  the  federation 
of  the  nations,  which  is  our  manifest  world-destiny, 
unless  the  solar  fires  go  out  more  quickly  than  wis- 
dom and  brotherhood  ripen  in  the  hearts  of  men. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  the  manifest  duty  of  a 
socially-minded  man,  of  a  man  who  recognizes 
himself  as  an  agent  of  the  social  purpose,  to  op- 
pose most  strenuously  an  established  army  and 
navy,  all  foreign  alliances  which  may  involve  either 


38^  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

war  or  unfriendliness,  to  oppose  the  exclusion  of 
men  or  merchandise,  and  to  throw  the  whole 
weight  of  his  influence  on  the  side  of  a  world-wide 
reciprocity  and  free  trade  and  comradeship.  At 
no  time  and  at  no  place  could  the  experiment  of 
an  absolutely  open-minded,  friendly  nation  be  in- 
augurated with  so  much  hope  of  success  as  just 
now  and  just  here  in  America.  In  all  the  world, 
the  vantage  ground  is  ours.  We  can  make  of 
America  a  self-contained  plutocracy,  exclusive,  un- 
friendly, powerful  enough  and  isolated  enough  to 
ignore  the  world-problem ;  or  we  can  make  a  social 
democracy,  with  open  door  and  helping  hand,  rich 
in  the  human  wealth  of  our  own  national  life,  and 
rich  in  the  friendly  comradeship  which  binds  us  to 
every  nation  on  the  earth  and  binds  them  to  us. 
The  role  we  play  will  depend  solely  upon  the  ideas 
which  we  bring  to  the  adventure,  and  these  ideas 
are  the  product  of  the  education  which  we  get  out 
of  the  joint  process  of  the  school  and  life. 

It  is  impossible  to  divorce  education  from  reli- 
gion and  have  education  remain  sincere.  And  it 
is  equally  impossible  to  divorce  it  from  pohtical 
thought.  For  both  religion  and  political  thought 
are  the  expression  of  the  deepest  part  of  a  man's 
nature,  of  his  philosophy  of  life,  and  the  educa- 
tional process  which  is  to  realize  this  philosophy 
must  take  cognizance  of  its  concrete  expression. 
In  attempting  to  deepen  the  social  instincts  of  our 
children  and  young  people,  and  to  make  them  the 
conscious  agents  of  the  social  purpose,  education 


THE  AGENTS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  PURPOSE    385 

must  also  instruct  them  in  those  practical  political 
methods  by  which  the  social  purpose  may  be  real- 
ized. The  experimental  life  is  very  jealous  of  its 
time,  sets  indeed  a  surpassingly  high  value  upon 
life  and  its  opportunity ;  and  it  would  be  contrary 
to  the  fundamental  maxims  of  this  experimental 
life  either  to  entertain  idle  sentiments  which  can- 
not be  realized  in  action,  or  to  spend  itself  on 
methods  and  operations  which  are  not  causational 
and  effective.  Government  is  the  expression  of 
political  thought,  its  practical  method  and  opera- 
tion. A  man  bent  on  the  accomplishment  of  the 
social  purpose  must  acquaint  himself  with  the 
machinery  and  detail  of  government,  not  only  to 
exercise  the  suffrage  intelligently  and  helpfully, 
but  also  that  he  may  be  the  better  able  to  lend 
a  hand  when  his  own  turn  for  political  serviot 
comes.  One  must  be  willing  to  serve  on  juries,  to 
act  on  boards  and  committees,  even  if  need  be  to 
hold  public  office.  One  need  not  do  this  always, 
or  even  for  any  great  length  of  time,  for  that  would 
be  to  wreck  one's  own  life  and  make  one  less  capa- 
ble of  wise  and  efficient  service,  but  one  must  be 
willing  to  do  one's  share ;  and  out  of  this  temperate 
public  work,  the  experimentalist  may  gain  an  expe- 
rience as  valuable  individually  as  the  service  was  of 
worth  publicly.  It  is  entirely  possible  and  practi- 
cable for  the  state  to  directly  further  the  living  of 
the  experimental  life.  The  increase  of  state  func- 
tion, and  the  idealizing  of  daily  toil,  will  ultimately 
bring  every  citizen    into    that    cooperative  self- 


386  EDUCATION  AND  LIFE 

employment  represented  by  the  public  service,  and 
this  service  may  be  made  to  offer  just  that  succes- 
sion of  occupations  needful  to  the  experimentalist 
and  needful  also  for  the  best  rendering  of  the  ser- 
vice itself.  If  in  addition  we  inaugurated  an  hon- 
orable pension,  not  only  for  old  age,  for  persons 
of  seventy-five  and  upwards,  but  also  for  childhood 
and  youth,  for  persons  under  twenty-five,  we  should 
be  realizing  the  conditions  of  a  large  individual 
freedom  to  which  each  one  might  contribute,  and  in 
which  each  one  might  share.  This  freedom  from 
bodily  want,  this  temperate  daily  toil,  this  abun- 
dance of  leisure,  are  necessary  to  the  study  and 
pursuit  of  perfection,  that  is,  to  the  attainment  of 
culture.  And  education,  to  be  a  culture  process, 
to  be  the  efficient  process  of  the  philosophic  idea, 
must  concern  itself  in  a  very  practical  and  causa- 
tional  way  with  the  establishment  of  these  requisite 
conditions. 

To  be  a  conscious  agent  of  the  social  purpose  is 
to  impart  to  one's  own  life  a  large  measure  of 
reality  and  charm.  The  possession  of  a  strong  and 
beautiful  and  accomplished  and  worthy  self  is  one 
half  of  the  endeavor.  The  other  half  is  to  further 
this  same  human  wealth  in  the  neighbor.  One 
becomes  a  member  of  that  increasing  company  of 
people  who  would  join  in  the  "  Song  of  the  Open 
Road:"  — 

"  Henceforth  I  ask  not  good  fortune, 
I,  myself,  am  good  fortune." 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .   A 


UC  SOUTMEHN  WaONV  uBRA«y  ftOUTi 


A    000  752  231     i 


